Ignite Your Bones
by Living Masquerade
Summary: Is it really possible for Draco to prove he has changed? Well, befriending American bakers, being best friends with a girl, and collaborating with Hermione Granger can sure help with that anyway. (Edited and re-uploaded)
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize I don't own **

**Okay, so this isn't a new story. A little while ago I deleted the whole thing with the intention of editing and re-uploading. Well, life got in the way. However, I did manage to get this much edited. The rest may be slow going, but it'll all eventually be re-uploaded with edits. Just note that if you read this before, there are some noticeable changes.**

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Hermione Granger liked to think of herself as an intelligent well organized person, but today that was not the case. From the moment she had received an emergency page from the hospital; her whole day had been in total chaos. When she arrived in the ward where she worked as one of the healers, she was met with a dozen witches and wizards with some sort of purple oozing substance stuck to their skin. And from the cries of the patients it was apparently burning the skin underneath.

"What is going on?" She asked as she arrived at the nurses' station.

Harriet, who had been working in the hospital since Hermione was a baby, glanced up at her looking completely disgruntled and out of her wits. A quick look at the schedule on the desk confirmed that yet again, Harriet's much younger counterpart had not shown up in time for her shift; leaving Harriet to work overtime.

"I was just about to send Jasmine a howler when this lot came in claiming they were at some party when the cake exploded." Harriet replied. "From the looks of things; it's a good thing no one had eaten any of the cake yet."

With a nod of thanks to Harriet, Hermione turned her attention to the people waiting covered in purple goo.

"Can anyone tell me what happened here?" She asked, folding her arms across her chest. "I can't possibly begin to accurately help any of you until I know what exactly happened."

All ten started to talk at once further confusing Hermione and only prolonging their treatment until a deep authoritative voice cut them off from the back.

"I can tell you what happened, Granger."

Hermione looked up in shock as Draco Malfoy made his way to the front of the group, purple goo covering his entire left arm.

"Whoever baked the cake must have slipped a little something extra in it, especially since it was a Malfoy Potions Incorporated party." He explained.

"Any idea what was slipped into the cake?" She asked with an arched eyebrow.

"I don't think it really matters, Granger. How about you start fixing us up? Starting with me of course."

"What is your pain level, Malfoy?" Hermione asked as she inspected his arm.

He didn't answer; instead he arched a brow as if to say nothing could hurt him. Hermione rolled her eyes and after taking a closer look waved her wand over his arm, watching in satisfaction as the goo disappeared and the burns were covered with a burn balm of her own making.

"There, it should be healed by morning. Just make sure not to wash it off tonight. Next!"

With that said Hermione dismissed Draco Malfoy without a second look, already moving onto a girl with goo over a good portion of her face. At first Draco was disgruntled that he was dismissed so easily but reminded himself that it was only Hermione Granger and he had much better things to do than wait in the hospital longer than necessary anyway.

So after settling with the nurse behind the desk, Draco made his way out of St. Mungos and into the night air. So, his employee party to boost morale had not gone as planned thanks to the baker he had hired to bake the cake. He would be paying her a visit in the morning. As for his employees, he had to think of a way to make it up to them. They had dealt with a lot just by being associated with his name for a long time. But now that the war wasn't in the forefront of people's minds and most people seemed to recognize Draco for the man he was now, he wanted to erase any doubt left in his employees' minds. It seemed he would be going with his secretary's idea from the beginning: give them all a raise after paying for all of their hospital bills, of course.

Bloody baker. What had he ever done to her? He didn't even know the girl. His secretary had recommended her after having visited her little bake shop and sampling some of her delightful cupcakes. Honestly, all he could remember about his encounter with her was that she had an accent-probably American- and her bakeshop was decorated with pineapples, which made absolutely no sense to him since it was a bake shop and not a fruit stand.

Once in his flat for the night Draco headed down the hall to his bedroom, tugging at his tie as he did so. He had just pulled his shirt off when he noticed the figure lying across his bed passed out. With a quick glance at the clock, Draco let out a sigh and went to wake her.

"Jasmine!"

"What?!" She screamed as she bolted upright.

"Shouldn't you be at the hospital?" He asked.

"Bloody hell, Harriet is going to kill me!"

With that said she quickly grabbed her jacket, slipped on her shoes and apparated out of the flat. Draco shook his head and continued to shed his clothes. His relationship with Jasmine was a weird one. It had all started about eight months ago when Jasmine had moved to the city for her new job at St. Mungos. They had met up at a bar on her first night in the city and had a one night stand. However, the next morning after an awkward minute after waking up she just started talking to him and he found himself responding. Since then they had stayed out of bed and instead had developed some strange sort of friendship with one another. Most days it felt like Jasmine lived in his flat instead of her own across town. She wouldn't admit it to him, but he was pretty sure she was afraid of her neighbor. This reminded him that he needed to take care of that issue on the morrow as well. He liked Jasmine, he really did, but he was sick of finding her girly articles around his house, especially when he brought home dates.

After making sure he wasn't about to sleep amongst Jasmine's under things, Draco slipped into bed with a sigh of contentment, careful to keep his left arm free from the covers so the balm wouldn't rub off. Then with his last thought of pineapples, purple goo, and Granger swimming around in his head, he drifted off to sleep.

Xxx

"Draco Malfoy was in here earlier?" Jasmine asked in surprise as she reviewed the charts from before she arrived for her shift.

Hermione Granger glanced down at her as she signed a form for a patient. "Yes, apparently, there was a cake exploding accident at his party."

"Oh no." Jasmine sighed. "He wanted things to go well!"

Hermione's brow crinkled, "Do you know Draco Malfoy?"

Jasmine nodded, "We're friends. He didn't say anything when I saw him before I got here. Is he okay?"

"The goo left behind minor burns on all of the victims, but nothing a little burn balm won't fix. They'll all be as good as new in the morning."

Jasmine sighed, "Let's hope that's the worst of our emergencies tonight."

"You know Jasmine, Harriet is getting too old to stick around as late as she does when you're late for your shift. " Hermione said kindly.

"I know. I just have troubles sleeping and when I finally fall asleep, which is usually in the worst possible place, I don't wake up that easily."

"Maybe you need to see a Healer yourself. Healer Robbins may be able to help you."

Jasmine shook her head, "What I need is to move. My neighbor scares me and, half the time I'm awake at night because I imagine him breaking his way into my flat to have his wicked way with me."

"Do you know who he is?"

"Yes, his name is-"

Xxx

"Theo?!" Draco gasped in surprise as the door opened to reveal Theodore Nott clad in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and an old Slytherin shirt.

Theo Nott was the neighbor Jasmine was scared of? Of course, as Draco looked him over he could easily see how that could be so. He wasn't exactly the kind of bloke who looked warm and inviting. In fact he looked down right mean at the moment. That could be from the hangover he was suffering from, if the smell of fire whiskey was any indication.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here, Malfoy?" He growled.

"I know the girl who lives across the hall from you and, while she won't admit it, she's afraid of you which means she spends half of her time at my place instead of her own."

Theo scoffed, "Usually that wouldn't be a problem for you, Malfoy."

Draco ran a hand through his hair, "Well, in this case it is. She's my friend and she keeps leaving all of her stuff around my flat. So, be less scary."

"This is how I am."

"Sloshed twenty four seven?"

"Pretty much."

"What happened to you?"

"Well, first there was the war and after that it's none of your damn business. Look, tell your friend she has nothing to worry about from me. I hardly even leave the flat so I'm definitely nothing for her to worry about."

Draco nodded his head, it was obvious that there was a lot going on with Nott and quite frankly he didn't know the guy well enough anymore to stick his nose into it. Besides, he was pretty sure that once Jasmine found out that Draco knew who her neighbor was she would make him help the guy out. So for now he would take the easy way out.

"Alright, thanks." And with that Draco walked away and headed towards the bake shop on his next mission.

Just as he remembered, the place was painted yellow with green accents, pineapple pictures and figurines all over the place. Not to mention the real pineapples that acted as centerpieces for each of her tables. Draco thought he had read somewhere that pineapples were a symbol for welcome, but this was taking it to the extreme.

Once he got past looking at all the pineapples he walked to the counter and rang the bell. A minute later the infamous baker walked out of the back, an apron tied around her waist which clearly had done nothing to keep the flour from covering half of her torso, forehead, and nose.

"Ah, Mr. Malfoy," She smiled pleasantly, "how was your cake?"

Draco narrowed his eyes, "I'll tell you how it was: it bloody exploded! Some goo substance exploded out and burned me and my employees!"

The baker's eyes were wide as she gazed into the heated glance of Draco Malfoy. "It exploded?"

"Yes, that's what I said." Draco snapped, sort of hating how mean he sounded at the moment, but knowing he had every right to be upset. However, she looked so frightened and confused and that only made him feel like a big bully.

"Oh no! I know what happened!" She cried. "While I was making the cake an owl came in to deliver a package and knocked over a bunch of things on my shelf. I checked to make sure nothing had gotten in the cake but I must have missed something!"

Draco arched a brow, "So, this has nothing to do with who I am?"

"No, it was a complete mistake, Mr. Malfoy, please forgive me! I'll even make you another cake free of charge, in fact, I'll make as many as you want!"

She seemed pretty sincere to Draco and the earnest look on her face only made him feel more like a bully. So, gentling his tone he said: "Excuse me, but I didn't seem to catch your name."

"Meredith Evans."

"Right. So, Ms. Evans you don't know who I am?"

Meredith shrugged, "If you are referring to your family's involvement in the first and second wizarding wars then yes, I know who you are. However, I grew up in America away from all of the politics that drove the wars and have no interest in who you once were. It is obvious to me, and from your desire to make sure I don't view you as a villain, that I know that you are a changed person. My exploding cake was not a personal attack if that's what you're thinking. Is everyone alright?"

Draco shook his head in disbelief. This Meredith Evans was a perceptive one and a little shocking at the same time. Draco took a minute to study her. Her dark brown hair was pulled up in a high pony tail, specks of flour mixed in here and there. And behind her glasses were a pair of matching brown eyes that seemed to be able to read him much too well.

"Yes, everyone is as good as new this morning. So alright, how about a second shot, Ms. Evans?" He asked suddenly. "How about you bake a cake for me only to show me what kind of skills you possess? Then, I can decide whether I want to use your services again, without the exploding cake as my only reference point."

She smiled, "On one condition: I can make you whatever I want."

"Deal."

Xxx

After finishing his business with the baker, Meredith Evans, Draco had arrived at work in a surprisingly good mood. Unfortunately, his employees from the night before hadn't been in quite the same mood. However, after quickly consulting with his trusted secretary, Mrs. Poppin, Draco made the announcement that they would all be receiving a raise, along with an increase to their Christmas bonuses. That sure brightened them up.

So when Draco arrived home he was in a pretty good mood…that was until he saw Jasmine passed out on his bed once again, drooling on his expensive silk coverlet. Draco rolled his eyes as he yanked off his tie. Did the girl not know how to turn down the covers? Even better, did she not know how to go to her own bed?

With that thought in mind Draco slapped her arse…hard. Jasmine woke with a start and immediately grabbed her stinging butt as she looked up at Draco in annoyance.

"You prat!"

Draco chuckled, "You're the one in my bed and, since we don't shag anymore I'd rather you stay out of my bed."

Her eyes turned pleading in the blink of an eye. Gone was the look of annoyance and in its place were the puppy dog eyes that Draco had a hard time resisting.

"Look, I paid a visit to your neighbor today. You have nothing to fear, I know the guy. He's harmless, just a drunk. So, gather your stuff and settle back into your own apartment and drool on your own coverlet."

Jasmine looked down at the wet stain of drool sheepishly, "Oops."

"Yeah oops, now you know I love you and all that stuff, but get out."

It took her a few minutes to realize he was completely serious. When she did understand she quickly gathered all of her stuff and headed to his fire place.

"I can still come and visit right?"

Draco shook his head, "But like a normal person who knocks and calls ahead."

"I get it. But if I am harmed it's on you, Draco Malfoy."

Draco laughed, "I'll never be able to live with myself."

Jasmine rolled her eyes and stepped into the fire place. Draco watched from his bed as she grabbed a hand full of powder, shouted her address, and was gone in a flash of green flames. Once she was gone though, Draco felt a pang…of loneliness? Impossible, he'd been wanting solitude for weeks, but every time he had thought to have some Jasmine had been in his apartment drooling somewhere on expensive silk. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the pang. He didn't need Jasmine here. Without Jasmine here he could finally bring a witch home without worrying about Jasmine being here to cramp his style.

Xxx

After being so rudely awakened a half hour ago at Draco's, Jasmine found it impossible to once again fall asleep despite the fact she had been up since the early morning hours working at the hospital and had another shift at one in the morning.

With a heavy sigh, Jasmine rolled out of her own bed which was most certainly not covered in anything near as expensive as silk, and went to take a shower. If she couldn't sleep she figured she may as well be productive and stock her apartment with food since it was clear that Draco was sick of her presence at the moment. Not that she blamed him. If she was honest with herself she had been a little ridiculous with her fear of the neighbor, but she hated living alone. Before moving to the city she had lived with her family in the quiet countryside. The city was a scary place, especially for a much sheltered Jasmine. What had she done the first night in the city? Had drunken sex with a total stranger who could have been a murderer. Thankfully, it had been Draco and now they were pretty good friends, but she may not be so lucky the next time. Not that she had any plans to have drunken sex with anyone anytime soon.

Once she was ready to make a public appearance, Jasmine grabbed her wand and purse and walked out of her flat. Just as she turned from locking the door she noticed that her neighbor was standing across the hall, having just come out of his flat, and was staring at her curiously. Jasmine's eyes went wide as she stared at him in shock.

She didn't care what Draco said about knowing him and him being nothing more than a drunk because at the moment he looked pretty bloody scary to her. He had to be over six feet to her small five foot one frame and his shoulders were just about as wide as the doorway! And his hair! It was dark as sin with eyes to match!

"You must be Malfoy's friend." He muttered as he took in the small girl before him. She was obviously scared at him, if the way she clutched her wand was any indication, and suddenly he felt bad that he had caused her unnecessary worry just because he had been too drunk to be a normal neighbor.

"Look, you have nothing to worry about with me. I apologize for moving in here and being a drunken arse too impolite to properly greet my neighbors. I've been having a rough time of it, but seeing Malfoy yesterday snapped me out of it for the time being."

She said nothing and continued to stare at him like a deer caught in the headlights. If he didn't feel so awful for causing her to have to sleep somewhere else for weeks he would have found it funny. But instead of laughing he took a step forward and held out his hand.

"I'm Theo Nott."

It took her a while and a lot of staring at his large hand, before she cautiously placed one of her much smaller hands in his.

"Jasmine Bishop."

Xxx

Shortly after lunch a knock sounded on Draco's office door. Mrs. Poppin had left on her lunch break to check on her husband, so he honestly had no idea who could be knocking at the moment.

"Come in." He called out cautiously.

A second later the door opened and Meredith Evans walked into his office confidently, holding containers filled with her confections. Draco licked his lips as he took in the number of treats she had brought for him to taste and looked up in surprise when Meredith let out a laugh.

"Looks like you have no worries that I'm going to accidentally poison you or have something explode on you again." Meredith chuckled. "Well, I didn't; I was extra careful this time and no owls were around the shop either."

"So what do you have for me?" Draco asked eagerly, feeling like a first year eagerly awaiting the desert segment of Christmas feast at Hogwarts.

"I thought to myself why just make you one thing? So, I decided to bring you a piece of everything I offer at the shop. However, I didn't decorate you a cake, you'll just have to take my word that I am excellent at it."

Draco nodded his head, "Of course."

"So, first let's start with my cheesecakes."

What followed was probably the best hour of Draco Malfoy's life to date. Every bite was an orgasm in his mouth and, as a man who had had quite a few excellent orgasms in his life he knew what he was talking about. The only thing that could possibly make Meredith's deserts better were if he were to eat them off of a beautiful woman!

"Last but not least, red velvet cake with my special cream cheese frosting. However, I decided to put a twist on it since I'm sure your favorite color is not red."

When she removed the foil Draco saw that instead of the traditional red of red velvet cake, his was green. He smirked in satisfaction as he picked the piece of cake up and shoved it into his mouth gleefully. He was sure that the color didn't make any difference in its taste, but he was also sure that this was the best piece of cake he had ever had in his life.

"I can see from your surprisingly expressive face that you enjoyed that as well as everything else I have placed before you today. I think I can confidently say that I'll be seeing more of your business?" Meredith smiled.

"Absobloodylutely." Draco sighed as he took a napkin to his face and wiped off the cake crumbs from the corners of his mouth.

Meredith then set to work gathering up her containers and once she was done she looked back to Draco who was slowly finishing his last piece of his cake.

"Well, have nice afternoon, Mr. Malfoy." She smiled and then breezed out of his office, leaving Draco behind in a sugar coma.

Draco stared after her a minute, "I'm sure I can find some sort of excuse to need a cake made soon."

Xxx

As luck would have it, Draco did have an excuse to call upon Ms. Evan's cake baking services within the few weeks that followed his afternoon of baked good ecstasy. As one of the head nurses in her ward, it had fallen on Jasmine to organize the work birthday parties this year. And since it was September that meant she had to organize a party for Hermione Granger.

Unfortunately, Jasmine was a bit of a procrastinator and had put off party planning until only a few days before Hermione's birthday on the , finding herself in a pickle, Jasmine rushed to Draco for help.

Draco, of course, was more than happy to help Jasmine out in this cause. After instructing her to call upon his personal party planner he assured her that he would take care of the cake. So, with a smile on his face, a few mornings before the nineteenth Draco walked into Meredith's little shop and rang the bell.

Meredith emerged from the back, a layer of flour coating her as usual. When she saw Draco behind the counter she smiled.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Malfoy?"

"I need to have a cake made for someone's birthday. I think your red velvet would be perfect since she is a former Gryffindor."

Meredith raised her brows, "A Gryffindor huh?"

Draco nodded, "It's my friend's co worker. She's a procrastinator and I assured her I would handle the cake. So, the cake doesn't need to be fancy as it's just a work party, maybe a small three tier with flowers or something. Oh, and her name is Hermione.

Meredith's eyes grew wide, "Hermione Granger?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, don't worry; I know exactly what to do. I'll deliver it personally. When's the party?"

"Noon on the nineteenth at St. Mungos."

Xxx

Hermione loved her birthdays. However, she hated her birthdays when they fell on work days. It wasn't because she didn't like working on her birthday, she was Hermione Granger after all, but she didn't like the little awkwardly put together party thrown together at the last minute by one of her coworkers. Unfortunately for her, her birthday not only fell on a work day but it was Jasmine's duty to plan it. Hermione liked Jasmine, but it was common knowledge that she was forgetful and often late to everything. Hermione was dreading whatever was in store for her with this party…if there was even a party to be dreading.

However, when Jasmine arrived on time to work with a pleasant smile on her face, Hermione began to wonder if today was going to go a little different than she expected. That was until she spied Draco Malfoy lurking around the ward for Jasmine. Hermione still didn't know what the full extent of their relationship was, however it was apparent that they had formed some sort of friendship… which she found odd because of the way the two of them were.

Although Jasmine had attended school in France, it was obvious that had she gone to Hogwarts she would have been placed in Hufflepuff, which meant that she was the kind of person that Draco would have been absolutely annoyed by years ago.

As she continued to watch him a hand came out of the conference room where her party was to be and dragged him inside, leaving Hermione alone in the hallway besides the few nurses roaming about from room to room.

"Healer Granger, you have a visitor." One of the nurses called from the nurses' station.

Putting down her stack of charts, Hermione headed for the station and smiled when Ginny Potter turned to her with a smile and a cup of Hermione's favorite hot chocolate in hand. Hermione smiled as she approached her best friend's wife and what would have been her own sister in law if fate had worked a little differently. Unfortunately, Ginny and Hermione would never become sisters because only a year ago Ron had died in an accident while on a mission for the Ministry.

"Happy Birthday Hermione!" Ginny beamed. "Harry and I were talking about how much you hate your work parties, so today I decided I would attend and see if I couldn't help make it a bit more bearable for you."

Hermione smiled, "Thanks Gin, but what about the baby?"

Six months ago Ginny had given birth to their first child, James, who was a spitting image of his father from the moment of birth.

"He's with Mum and it's not as if I'll be gone for that long. These things only last about an hour right?"

Hermione nodded, "Yes, but feel free to leave whenever you want. They're not that exciting, trust me. And the food is usually rubbish."

"Well, that's why I brought you this." Ginny replied as she handed Hermione the cup of hot chocolate.

Of course it was at that moment that Hermione spied a woman approaching levitating a large box marked: FRAGILE towards the conference room. Ginny and Hermione watched as she disappeared inside and then turned to each other with hopeful looks on their faces.

"I think this year your party might be a little different." Ginny smiled.

Sure enough ten minutes later saw the two of them in the conference room with all the other healers and nurses of the ward singing 'Happy Birthday' to Hermione. Usually Hermione would have been blushing and trying to avoid everyone's eyes as she suffered through the embarrassing birthday ritual, but this time her eyes were trained on what had been inside that giant box.

It was a cake that was for sure. But not the kind of birthday cakes Hermione had had in her life. Sure, when she had turned seventeen her parents had gone to a bakery and had a special cake made, but it had been nothing more than a large sheet cake. The base of this cake was shaped and designed as a book and on top were the symbols of the Healer. It was amazing.

After the song was over, Hermione made her way over to where the girl that had carried the cake in stood. She seemed nervous as she saw Hermione approaching, but put a smile on her face nonetheless.

"Hello, I'm Hermione." Hermione greeted with a smile.

"Meredith." She replied.

"Did you make this cake?"

Meredith nodded, "Mr. Malfoy commissioned me to make it. He wasn't sure what you would like so I took the liberty of taking what I knew about you and designed this cake."

Hermione smiled, although she was puzzled as to why Draco Malfoy would commission a birthday cake for her. "It's lovely. I almost hate the thought of cutting it up and serving it!"

Meredith grinned, "It's a red velvet cake, which I have been told is my best recipe."

"It is." Draco smirked as he approached. "Go ahead and slice it up, Granger. The rest of us are eager to taste that cake."

Hermione watched as Meredith rolled her eyes at Draco and suddenly understood why Malfoy was here in the first place. He was, of course, friends with Jasmine who had been tasked with Hermione's birthday party. And because Jasmine was a notorious procrastinator she had turned to her friend for help and, because he seemed to enjoy Meredith's cakes so well it all made sense. However, she found that she didn't care. He had paid for a very lovely cake for her hadn't he?

"Alright," Hermione nodded, "but I get the first piece."

"Of course you do!" Meredith exclaimed. "You are the birthday girl after all."

With that said Meredith grabbed her knife and started to serve up the cake. As promised the first piece was handed to Hermione, who examined the beautiful red color in awe. She knew that there was nothing more to it than red food coloring, but that didn't take away the sense of novelty that red velvet cake had. So as everyone watched, Hermione took her first bite and found that she had to bite back the embarrassing moan that almost slipped out of her mouth as she chewed.

"This is delicious!"

"I'm glad you like it."

"Yes, it's all very lovely." Draco interrupted. "Where's my piece?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize I don't own **

After her run in with her neighbor Jasmine had actually been able to sleep at night in her own flat for the first time in months. However, that didn't mean she wasn't still wary of him. Although he said he had reformed his drinking ways, it seemed that he had switched to a new hobby to occupy his time. Women. And lots of them.

At first she had only seen a few of them going in and out during the night and early morning hours thanks to her strange work schedule. But on the first night she didn't have a work shift, she heard the proof that he was entertaining a woman quite clearly. It was nothing a simple charm couldn't cure, though.

But it did become a problem when one of the women came knocking on her door quite loudly early one morning. The girl wasn't completely drunk, but she was tipsy and very scantily clad. It appeared that Mr. Nott had kicked her out of his flat and she had come to her door raging that the reason Theo didn't want her was because of Jasmine.

Jasmine had sent her home through the floo politely and decided that she would pay her neighbor a visit after a proper sleep. So, after she was rested and had showered, Jasmine made her way across the hall and knocked on Theo's door.

He answered the door in nothing but a pair of boxers and didn't even flinch as Jasmine gave him a once over that immediately caused her to blush. After an awkward pause, she resolutely looked up into his face and took a deep breath.

"Look, one of your bimbos came to my door early this morning raging at me. So I would appreciate it if you could keep them reined in. Also, it would be nice if I didn't have to remember to use a silencing charm every night in my own flat."

Theo stared down at the girl in front of him. She was a lot shorter than he was, which he usually didn't like, but on her it was strangely endearing. Her blonde hair was gathered up into a flirty high pony tail and those emerald green eyes of hers were flashing in annoyance at him.

"I'm sorry if I've caused you discomfort." He said easily.

"Well, yes, you have."

"Let me make it up to you." Theo smiled. "How about I treat you to dinner tonight?"

Those emerald eyes narrowed, "If you think you're going to get me into bed like some cheap bimbo you've got another thing coming!"

Theo laughed, actually laughed. Something he had been unable to do for a long time now.

"No, it's just my way of apologizing."

She crossed her arms, "Fine, but my shift starts at eleven tonight."

"That's fine. We'll go grab dinner at six so you have plenty of time to get ready for work."

Theo watched as she walked back to her flat and smiled to himself. How was it that some little petite thing from across the hall was able to make him feel more alive by yelling at him than when he was having what should have been the best sex of his life?

Xxx

"You're going to dinner with Nott?!"

"He's apologizing."

"His way into your pants! You said yourself that he's been bringing girls in and out of there as if it was a ladies' loo at the train station!"

Jasmine rolled her eyes at Draco. Why she had decided to visit him at work and fill him in on what happened was beyond her, but he was her only friend in the city and she needed to talk it out. However, she didn't expect that he would become so defensive of her.

"I can take care of myself if he tries to get fresh with me, Draco."

Draco sighed and ran a hand through his already disheveled blonde hair. "I know; there's just something off about him. So please be careful and let me know what happens."

"No problem." Jasmine replied and then took notice of the large bakery box in his trash bin as well as the crumbs on his desk. "Draco, if you aren't careful you are going to become fat off that bakery!"

"I can't help it! I'm addicted!"

Jasmine smiled knowingly, "I think I know the real reason you go there every day; you like seeing the baker. It's only a plus that her creations are delicious."

Draco raised a brow, "Try her pumpkin pasties and then tell me I'm just going there to see her."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, chubs. I have to go; I'll send you an owl when I get back from dinner."

"Hey! I am not chubby!"

"You will be!" Jasmine sang as she walked out of his office.

After the door shut behind her Draco took a look at the carnage his bakery visit had left behind. Not only was there a huge bakery box taking up most of the space in his trash bin, but his desk was littered with at least four different kind of crumbs, as were his trousers. And if he wasn't mistaken, he was in the throes of a sugar crash combined with an upset stomach.

Maybe Jasmine was right: he needed to lay off the sweets. However, he couldn't lie to himself about the other part of what she had said. He did, in fact, enjoy seeing Meredith. There was something about her that interested him. Maybe it was the fact that she was sweet and made delicious confections. Or maybe it was the fact that he found her accent adorable and her eyes captivating. But what stuck out most was that she didn't care about his past. Although many claimed that they accepted Draco as the new man he was and not the child he had been, they were still wary of him. Meredith, on the other hand, didn't give a whit even though she knew of his past.

However, he couldn't keep going to the shop everyday if he wanted to stay in his current trouser size. That meant that he would have to find another excuse to visit that didn't result in the expansion of his waist line.

Xxx

Because her dinner was not supposed to be a date and instead an apology, Jasmine didn't take as much care with her appearance as she usually would have for a date. But because Jasmine wore the hospital assigned robes most of the time, she relished any occasion she had to dress up. So, she opted for her favorite pair of dark washed jeans, a red blouse and a light black jacket. And with a quick flick of her wand her blonde hair, which was usually up in a pony tail, was hanging loosely around her shoulders.

When Theo knocked on her door at the agreed upon time she opened the door to reveal him similarly dressed. He simply wore a pair of dark trousers and a button down shirt, nothing else, which relieved Jasmine. Although he had said he had no ulterior motives, the number of girls coming in and out of his flat lately led her to believe otherwise.

"Ready to go?" He asked politely after giving her a once over.

"Yes." She replied.

A half hour later saw her seated in a nice little bistro with some of the best French onion soup she had had in a long time. But despite the nice surroundings and food, both of them had remained awkwardly silent.

"I would like to apologize again for my discourteous behavior as your neighbor since I moved in." He finally said as he sat aside his empty dishes.

"It's alright. Although I have to ask: did something happen to you?"

Theo looked at her in surprise and Jasmine hastened to say: "Of course, I didn't meet you until recently, but my friend Draco said there was something off about you and I wondered if something had happened for you to act off in the first place."

Theo's eyes narrowed and he practically growled, "You can tell Malfoy to mind his own business."

"He wasn't prying! It was just an observation. Look, you don't know me so you are in no way obligated to tell me anything about your life. However, when the conflicts in your life affect my life in my flat I do have a problem. So if you ever want to talk, I'm available to you, but no pressure. Anyway, I have to go and get ready for my shift. Thanks for dinner."

And before Theo could say anything and before the conversation could get even worse than it already was, Jasmine left the bistro and headed back to her flat. After a quick letter sent by her small owl to Draco, letting him know that she was fine, she changed into her work clothes and flooed over. It was the first time Jasmine had ever arrived at work early.

Xxx

"I can't believe it." Harriet smiled as she waltzed into the break room where Hermione was currently drinking some tea and looking over a chart.

Hermione looked up from the chart and into the radiant face of Harriet. Never had Hermione seen the lady smile, she was usually so tired and ticked off when Hermione had to deal with her.

"Jasmine was actually early for her shift. So, I'm going to take off for the night."

"Wow." Hermione breathed. "Well, have a good night, Harriet."

"Oh, I will."

Once Harriet was gone Jasmine came running into the room, a look of panic on her face. Hermione jumped to attention immediately, making sure her wand was where it was supposed to be in her right side pocket of her robes for easy access.

"What happened?"

"There was a fire at the bistro…oh Merlin, I was just there! If I hadn't left when I had…it started in the kitchen and got out of control fast when someone used the wrong charm to try to stop it."

"Take a deep breath, Jasmine. How many are hurt?"

"There's been about twenty admitted, but most of them are minor burns. But there are five that have drastic burns, Healer Granger: the head chef, two waiters, and two customers that have not been identified yet."

"Does that mean facial burns?" Hermione asked.

Jasmine nodded sadly, "Beyond recognition."

As Hermione charged out of the room ready to save the critical patient's lives, Jasmine slumped against the wall hoping that Theo had left the bistro before the fire had started. She hadn't seen him among those with minor burns and there was no way of telling for sure if he was one of the two customers that had been burned beyond recognition.

Upon reaching the center of the ward Hermione was met with chaos. It seemed that those with minor burns were in a hurry to be treated and sent on their way, ready to put this incident behind them. Unfortunately, they were short on the ward today and as there were five critical patients they would have to be seen to first. Of course, they didn't want to hear that.

"Excuse me!" Hermione yelled, finally drawing the attention of those waiting and yelling about their lack of service. "As we are short on staff today we will do our best to treat you according to the order you were each admitted. However, we can only afford two healers to this task as we have five patients who are severely burned and in need of all the help we can give them. So your patience would be most appreciated."

This seemed to work to calm them down enough so that they were able to actually go about their jobs. Hermione left two of the interns to the people in the waiting room and made her way to the trauma rooms to assess the critical burn patients.

"What do we have here?" Hermione asked as she walked into the first room.

Healer Daniels, who had been working in the ward about the same length of time as Hermione replied as the nurses worked on cleaning the wounds as best as possible, "Male, thirty five, identified as the head chef of the bistro. He caught most of the basic kitchen fire before the wrong charm was used."

"Alright, it looks like you have him handled." Hermione nodded and moved along to the next room.

The next patient was one of the two waiters whose burns weren't as critical as Hermione had feared they would be. The same could be said for the second waiter; they had both avoided the part of the fire that had gone out of control from the wrong charm. Thankfully, however, this waiter was able to fill Hermione in on what had happened.

"Once it had spread to the dining room, I tried to stop it, but some woman shoved her way towards the fire insisting she knew what she was doing. She was followed by this big bloke that tried to stop her, but she had already cast the wrong charm and before I knew what was happening the two of them were being blown backwards as the fire burned out of control."

Thus, Hermione wasn't surprised to see that the unidentifiable woman customer in question was dead when she arrived in the room. Her burns had been too severe and in the time it took to remove her from the scene and get her to St. Mungos she had died from her wounds. Thankfully the other customer was still holding on as Hermione came into the room and quickly threw herself into the fray of spell casting to help save his life. They still had no idea who he was, but hopefully some of their healing charms would start to reveal his identity.

It was hours before the two interns had worked through the minor burn patients and by the time the last of them were sent out the door both interns were exhausted, as was Jasmine from all the paperwork that had to be done to both admit and discharge all of them. Thankfully, someone had been able to identify the woman as a friend and Jasmine had been unfortunate enough to be the one to send an owl to her family. She just hoped her shift would be over before they came in to claim the body.

"Jasmine, we think we have managed to identify the last critical burn patient. Pull Theodore Nott's chart and meet me in room five."

Jasmine's heart sank as Hermione walked away. If it was truly Theo lying there in room number five, then he hadn't left the Bistro before the fire had started. And from the stories of the other customers he had tried to stop the lady who didn't know what she was doing and in the process got herself killed. So, with a heavy heart, Jasmine located Theo's chart from a previous visit to St. Mungos, complete with a picture on the inside to confirm his identity.

The sight waiting for her when she arrived in the room wasn't as horrific as she had feared after seeing him brought into the ward. The healers had done a fantastic job with most of the burns. However, there were some burns that no magic could heal completely. Thanks to magic though, he wouldn't be quite as scarred as he could have been given the nature of his burns.

"That's him, Healer Granger. I was just with him at the bistro before my shift and all of this happened." Jasmine stated as she handed the chart over to one of the nurses anyway.

Hermione smiled at her comfortingly, obviously noting Jasmine's obvious distress over the situation, "He should be fine. He'll need a few days in the ward, but then we'll be able to send him home with only a few scars to mark this incident."

Jasmine sighed, poor Theo. There was definitely something wrong with him even if he wouldn't admit it to anyone and now it seemed that he would have outward scars to match the ones that he had on the inside.

Xxx

Although he tried to stop himself, Draco was headed towards the bakery. He had been successful the past few days in avoiding the bakery by occupying his time with early morning meetings, however today there had been nothing to schedule this early to avoid his inevitable trip to Meredith's bakery.

"Ah, Mr. Malfoy, I wondered when you were going to come in." Meredith smiled as Draco walked into the bakery.

He was surprised to see her behind the counter because usually she was always in the back working on something. However, this morning she already appeared to have customers. An older couple was sitting in one of the tables in the corner drinking tea and eating some of Meredith's delicious pumpkin pasties.

"I need to start limiting myself before I become too big for my trousers." Draco replied as he made his way to the counter.

Meredith chuckled, "Some would say you already are."

"Clever."

"I thought so." She grinned, "What can I get you this morning, Mr. Malfoy?"

"First, you can quit calling me Mr. Malfoy. My name is Draco. And second I think I will have two pumpkin pasties."

"For here or to go?"

Draco thought for a minute and considered the pineapple shaped clock behind Meredith. As he thought about the stack of paper work waiting for him on the desk, Jasmine's voice came into his head calling him chubby and making fun of him for visiting the bakery so much.

"For here, but only if you enjoy the second pumpkin pastie with me." He replied with what he hoped was one of his most charming smiles.

However, it seemed that Meredith was immune to his charm. So, he was going to have to use a tactic that he had never had to use before when it came to women: sincerity.

"Let me put it this way: I would like to enjoy a pumpkin pastie with you." He stated. "We can talk about the weather, or your recipes, or even your apparent obsession with pineapples."

Meredith smiled, "Alright, I'll tell you about my obsession with pineapples."

Draco smiled smugly as he turned and sat down at the nearest table and waited for Meredith to come around the counter with the pasties in hand. Once she had sat down and Draco had taken his first bite of the delicious confection, Meredith took a breath.

"The story behind all the pineapples is really quite simple, Mr. Mal-Draco. I just like them."

"But why pineapples? Why not apples? Or strawberries even?"

"I like the taste of pineapples better than both of those." She replied simply. "But I guess what started it all was my Grandmother. I grew up in the United States, if you couldn't tell, but specifically in the Midwest where pineapples obviously do not grow. My Grandmother, however, moved to Hawaii when I was a baby and would send me and my brother gifts. Most of the time it was grass skirts, coconuts and volcanic rocks, but during my first year at school she sent me fresh Hawaiian pineapples for Christmas. Up until that point I had only ever had canned pineapple or dried pineapple, so I was in heaven as I ate them. From then on I decided that I liked the look of them as well and started to collect items."

"I take it your Grandmother is a witch if she was able to send fresh pineapple to you without it spoiling?"

Meredith shook her head with a smile, "My Grandmother is a muggle. She was able to express ship it, a muggle method, to my parents who sent them with my owl to me at school."

"What school was that?"

"The North American Institute of Witch craft and wizardry in central Canada."

Draco looked thoughtful, "Never heard of it."

She smiled, "Why would you? It's a baby compared to Hogwarts. The institute opened in the early 1960's in response to the large number of magical children that had been born from the baby boom following World War two. There is, of course, the school in Massachusetts near Salem, but as the muggle world has developed it has become harder and harder to hide the school. Since the Institute has opened most children go there instead, where as the elite very traditional families send their children to Salem."

"The purebloods you mean?"

"Well yes, but also a fair number of half bloods. Most muggle borns go to the institute simply because the professors reach out and help the muggle families deal with the life changing news."

"Was there Quidditch at your school?"

"Of course!" Meredith grinned. "I was a chaser on my team for five years!"

"Really? I was a seeker."

"You do have a seeker look about you."

"What kind of look is that?"

Meredith shook her head, "There are some customers headed in so I need to get back to work. Have a good day, Draco."

"Thank you, you too."

Xxx

Theo had woken up a few days ago, but had yet to see anyone in his hospital room except for the nurse assigned to his case. Although… he could have sworn he had seen Hermione Granger looming over him at some point, but he figured that was due to his pain potion and nothing else. However, there was no denying her presence now as she walked into the room followed by none other than his neighbor, Jasmine.

"Well, Mr. Nott, I have good news. You're all set to go home. Jasmine here will handle your discharge papers. We've made you batches of pain potion, as well as a salve for the burns and if you have any questions feel free to owl at anytime." Hermione explained then left the room with a smile, leaving Jasmine staring at him uncertainly, a chart clutched in her hand.

"I'm sorry this happened to you Theo." She said quietly.

"It's not your fault. I just wish I left when you did."

"Me too."

"Be honest. How bad do I look? They haven't let me look at a mirror once since I've been in this bloody place."

Jasmine smiled comfortingly, "Believe me, you look absolutely brilliant compared to how you looked when they first brought you in. We couldn't even identify you!"

Theo fell silent at that. Was he going to be forever deformed from trying for once in his life to do the right thing and apologize to his nice neighbor? If that was the case it was no wonder why there were so many mean people in the world if the second they tried to do something nice they got bit in the arse for it.

Jasmine took the opportunity his silence provided to shove some papers and a quill in his hand, "Here, sign these while I find a mirror for you."

It only took him a minute for him to sign his discharge papers, but Jasmine seemed to have a hard time finding him a mirror. Someone had taken the mirror out of his bathroom and searching through the drawers in the room proved fruitless. Having excelled in Transfiguration, she finally decided to take his water pitcher and transform it into a mirror.

"Impressive." Theo smiled as he accepted the transformed mirror from her.

"Not my best work, but it'll do."

With a deep breath Theo held the mirror up to his face and took in his appearance. Most of the burns across the majority of his face had been able to be healed completely, but around his forehead and his ears, the scarring was evident as it was down both sides of his neck. As for the rest of his body, he had already inspected, and found that most of his body remained unscarred except for the right side of his chest and the back of his right calf.

"See… as I said, you look handsome. If anything the scarring adds a sense of mystery. It should be a hit with the ladies." Jasmine joked, trying to lighten the mood in the room.

"Is it a hit with you?" Theo asked suddenly, turning his attention away from his face to look into those beautiful emerald eyes of hers. He had to hold back a chuckle as he watched her cheeks redden and her eyes widen.

"I think you look quite dashing. Like Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre…except he went blind…but that's not the point! You look fine! I would dare say interest in you will only increase, Theo. Girls like danger."

Theo had to chuckle at her nervousness, "I'm quite done with danger, thank you, and that type of girl. In fact, I'd rather the interest in me not increase."

"Well, that's understandable. Look, my shift is over in fifteen minutes. Why don't I take you home and get you settled in? I can even make you a nice lunch."

"Sounds nice."

Xxx

After using a cleaning spell on his flat, Jasmine had ducked over to her flat to grab ingredients to make him a nice hearty stew. The stew had been a success with him and after she had made sure he was resting in bed she had gone home with a light heart. It felt good to help him out; since if it wasn't for her he would have never been at the bistro in the first place.

Jasmine was changing into a pair of pajamas when her fireplace glowed green and Draco stepped out.

"Don't you know how to call ahead or use the floo in the living room for Merlin's sake?" Jasmine cried as she clutched her shirt over her naked breasts.

Draco waved a dismissive hand at her, "It's nothing I haven't seen before and it slipped my mind to use that fireplace instead. Anyway, have you ever heard of the North American Institute of Witchcraft and wizardry?"

Jasmine huffed at his dismissive behavior and quickly slipped her shirt on, without showing him her naked breasts.

"Yes, it's in Canada. Mostly Canadians and Americans go there."

"Why haven't I ever heard of it?"

Jasmine rolled her eyes, "Because you come from a very traditional, elitist family that wouldn't concern itself with a school so young, let alone located on any other continent other than Europe."

"Point taken."

"Why do you ask? Oh wait, I think I know why. You found out that's where Meredith went didn't you?"

Draco nodded, "I had a chat with her this morning about her pineapple obsession and that came up. Did you know that muggles have something called 'express shipping' that will get fresh Hawaiian pineapples to central Canada before they go bad?"

Jasmine laughed out loud. She herself was the product of two half blood parents which meant that both of her parents were well versed in the way of muggles, as both of her grandmothers had been muggles and had run their households the muggle way. Which, in turn, meant that Jasmine had been raised just as much muggle as she was witch.

"Draco, that's how muggles get most of their foods. They ship all fresh fruits from places like South America and the like to grocery stores to some of the colder places in the North American continent. Muggles here in Europe get food that way as well. I would say that their method of shipping is probably just as fast as our way of getting exotic foods to different places."

"Well, excuse me."

"No need to get defensive. I'll say this though: Meredith is most certainly not a pureblood."

"Why do you say that?" Draco asked curiously even though he knew that she couldn't be given that one of her grandmothers was a muggle.

"Well, first of all, she goes to the Institute when most purebloods in North America go to Salem. Secondly, purebloods in North America are very rare. Going to the New World was too unsophisticated for most of the purebloods and those that did go found that they had no other options for a spouse other than a muggle or a half blood. You're not telling me that her blood status would change your interest in her would it? If so I will be disappointed in you, Draco Malfoy."

"No, of course not! I'm just curious. She's probably a half blood."

"Good. So what is this about pineapples anyway?"

"Her whole shop is filled with pineapple stuff. But enough about me, what's been going on with you?"

"Did you hear about that bistro fire?"

Draco nodded and Jasmine continued on, "That's the bistro I went to dinner with Theo to. Apparently, after I left a fire broke out and Theo was one of the serious burn victims. We couldn't even identify him when he came in. Healer Granger was able to heal most of the burns all the way, but he will have some scarring that will never go away."

"Is he home from the hospital?"

"Yes, we discharged him today and I helped him get settled in. I feel bad because if it wasn't for me he wouldn't have been in the bistro in the first place."

Draco shook his head and walked over to Jasmine to place a comforting arm around her shoulder, "It's not your fault, Jasmine. He could have left when you did, but he didn't. The important thing is that he's alright."

"I know…I just want to help him because it's obvious he has as much scarring on the inside from something else and now he has scars on the outside to match."

"He's always been a private person, Jasmine. Leave it alone."

Jasmine shook her head as if to agree with Draco, but in reality she knew that it would be her mission to figure out what had happened to Theo Nott. If no one could fix the scars on the outside, she was going to try to heal the scars on the inside.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.**

**Note: I know some of you have read this before, but for those who haven't please keep in mind that this is a Dramione...eventually. Give it time: there is a method to the madness.**

* * *

Since moving to England six months ago there had only been a few occasions when Meredith had missed her home and today was one of them. Outside the rain was coming down hard, the pedestrians were dressed in their rain cloaks and had their umbrellas up to guard them against the rain that would have soaked them clear to the bone. But it wasn't the rain's fault that she missed home; today was her brother's birthday.

The jingle of the bell above the door drew her attention away from her melancholy and to the figure that walked in out of the rain. A small smile spread across her lips as she took in the sight of Draco Malfoy dressed in a long black trench coat, a curved handled black umbrella at his side. Despite what he had said about watching how much of her confections he ate, he still came in every morning without fail; rain or shine.

"Good morning." She greeted, pushing the sadness to the back of her mind once again. Frowns would not sell her goods, but smiles sure did, especially if Draco Malfoy was any indication.

Meredith wasn't stupid; she knew that Draco didn't come to her shop day after day just for her pumpkin pasties, even though they were brilliant. He came because she fascinated him and she was okay with that because he happened to fascinate her too.

"It looks like it's raining cats and dogs out there." She joked as Draco hung his coat up on her coat rack near the door.

He turned to her with a bemused expression on his face, "Cats and dogs?"

"It's a muggle expression. There's also a little song about the rain as well." She explained as he made his way to the counter to eye the goods she had out on display today. As usual he indicated he wanted a pumpkin pastie and a cup of tea.

"Sing it then."

"Sing the little song?"

"Yes." Draco grinned. "I am most fascinated by what muggles come up with. Honestly, a song about the rain?"

Meredith rolled her eyes, "It's for children. But alright, I'll sing it for you. 'It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring, he went to bed and bumped his head and couldn't get up in the morning'."

"What does bumping his head have anything to do with rain?"

Meredith sighed, "It's for children and it's a song. My point was is that the rain is sure coming down hard out there."

"Just another day in London." Draco shrugged. "So, what was the weather like at your school in Canada?"

"Cold! But it was definitely secluded so we didn't have to worry about muggles or their urban development like the Salem school does."

"Why did you move to London?"

Now that was the million dollar question. Why did she move to London when it was obvious she missed her home so much?

"Well, after I heard the outcome of the war I wanted to be a part of the rebuilding; to contribute to a new society where purebloods that had once been in control of all the power were no longer in those high positions any longer. I wanted to see what Harry Potter and his two best friends fought for. And there were circumstances at home that pushed me towards coming here."

She could tell that Draco was curious to know what those circumstances were, but he was too polite to ask. They didn't know each other well enough for that conversation. At this point, despite the fact that they fascinated each other, Draco was still nothing more than a very valuable customer she happened to have pleasant conversations with.

"You left all your friends and family behind then." Draco mused. "My friend did that as well, although she only moved from the country. I should bring her in with me she needs to try these pumpkin pasties."

"You and those pumpkin pasties." Meredith smiled. "That reminds me: I made a small green velvet cake for you. Free of charge for all the business you provide me with."

Draco looked stunned as she hurried to the back and came back out with a small cardboard box that contained the small little cake.

"It's small, so you don't have to worry about your waist line." She assured him as she placed the box in front of him on the table. "But don't look at it until later and make sure to keep it safe from the rain: a water repelling charm should do the trick."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." She smiled.

Xxx

After he had finished his lunch, Draco could no longer wait to see what the little cake Meredith had made him looked like. He opened the little box excitedly and was pleasantly surprised to see that she had shaped and decorated the cake to look like a snitch. He smiled at her thoughtfulness and because she had remembered that he had been a seeker. He debated for a minute on whether or not he should eat it; not wanting to ruin her design. But in the end he decided that it was a cake and could not be placed on a shelf for display for any length of time.

Sure enough his first bite revealed the cake was an emerald green color and was just as delicious as he remembered it to be. He was moaning in delight when Jasmine waltzed into his office without a knock.

"Are you making love to that cake or eating it?" She asked with a smile.

"Ha ha. Taste it and you'll see." Draco replied, offering his fork to her.

Jasmine looked skeptical, but after her small bite she turned to Draco with astonished eyes.

"No wonder you go there every day! You not only get to see this baker, but you get to eat stuff like that!"

"Told you."

Jasmine shook her head, "We both know the main reason is the baker."

"Whatever. I want to take you there tomorrow morning if you can. She could use a friend and I think you two would get along well. Not to mention the fact that her pumpkin pasties are to die for."

"I really hope you are exercising after eating all these sweets."

Draco waved a hand, "I have a fast metabolism, but if you must know I've been swimming laps at the complex pool at night."

"Good. Well, it just so happens that I can go with you to her shop tomorrow because my next shift doesn't start until tomorrow night at eleven."

"Brilliant. I'll floo over to your place at eight tomorrow morning."

"This better be good if I am to sacrifice my morning of sleeping in."

Draco just smirked.

Xxx

The next morning after Draco had flooed to Jasmine's, the two headed on foot to Meredith's bake shop. Jasmine was not a morning person and to her knowledge Draco wasn't one either, but he was pretty chipper considering the smile on his face…and was that a spring in his step? Jasmine was slightly disturbed, but at the same time hopeful for her friend.

Sure enough, the first thing Jasmine noticed when they walked inside was the pineapples. They were everywhere but done in a tasteful way that didn't remind her of her Grandmother's obsession with dolls. There was nothing creepier than a doll in the restroom, staring right at you with those little glass eyes while you went about your business. Jasmine shuddered at the memory, but pushed it aside quickly when she saw the infamous baker come to the counter.

"Good morning, Draco." She greeted with a smile.

"Good morning, Meredith. This is Jasmine, the friend I was telling you about yesterday. I've brought her to try some pumpkin pasties."

"Alright, you guys have a seat and I'll bring them to you. Tea for you both?"

"Sounds lovely." Jasmine smiled politely.

Once they were seated Jasmine whispered, "She's pretty: if you like flour in the hair, which you obviously do."

"Shut up before she hears you, idiot."

Jasmine chuckled, "Ha! You do like her; otherwise you wouldn't act like a thirteen year old boy with a crush!"

"Listen here-oh thank you Meredith. Why don't you join us?"

Meredith finished placing their tea and pumpkin pasties down and addressed them both with an uncertain smile. It was obvious to Jasmine, as Meredith looked her over, that she thought the two of them were more than just friends. People tended to do that. Maybe it was because people could sense that they had been involved at one time, even if it was just about twelve hours, but mostly she thought it was because they were both blondes.

"I was just telling my dear friend Draco about my handsome neighbor. He was just in a fire you see, and got some scaring on his face. I say that the scaring has only made him handsomer, but Draco doesn't agree that scars are dashing. What do you think?" Jasmine asked, hoping to convey the fact that she and Draco were not interested each other in a romantic way.

Meredith smiled and took the seat in between the two of them with ease, "I think that if Draco got some sort of scaring on his face he would absolutely insist it was dashing and increased his handsomeness."

"Well of course, I can pull off any style." Draco smirked.

Both girls rolled their eyes.

"Scars add an air of mystery to a man and, if they're not disfiguring, definitely add to the attractiveness of certain men." Meredith said to answer Jasmine's original question.

"What about tattoos that are no longer wanted?" Draco asked cautiously as he looked directly at Meredith. Jasmine ceased to exist to him at the moment as he waited for her answer.

"Are you referring to your dark mark?" Meredith asked gently.

Draco could only nod.

"I think that if one regrets it and is ashamed of it, then it is something that is easily forgotten and overlooked."

Draco breathed a sigh of relief and caught the satisfied smirk Jasmine sent his way. Embarrassed, his cheeks actually started to color a bit and Draco quickly changed the subject.

"So Jasmine, what is your verdict on the pumpkin pasties?"

"Absolutely delicious. Where did you learn how to make these?"

"At the institute we had a class similar to muggle's version of home economics. Since I have always loved baking and cooking I took it and learned that recipe from my professor. However, I did tweak a few things and even she agreed that mine were better than hers." Meredith replied with a pleasant smile. "All of my muggle recipes though, come from my Grandmother who was quite an avid baker herself before she retired to Hawaii. Now her specialty is pineapple upside down cakes she sells to locals at a market on Saturdays."

"Pineapple upside down cake?" Draco asked curiously.

"I'll make it for the two of you sometime, with fresh pineapples of course. Otherwise it wouldn't be the same as my Grandmother's."

Xxx

Over the last few weeks Jasmine had found herself wandering into Meredith's bake shop whenever she had a chance. The two of them had enjoyed some nice conversation over tea and pumpkin pasties and had quickly discovered that they got along and had a lot in common. Both were new to the city life and both desperately missed home.

"So I thought I would invite you and Draco over tonight to collect on that pineapple upside down cake. I've also got a dinner planned as well." Meredith stated as Jasmine walked in just after noon.

"That sounds lovely: count me in. Have you asked Draco yet?"

She nodded, "I asked him this morning."

"So, where do you live?"

"Right upstairs."

"Oh, well, that's handy." Jasmine commented then glanced at the pineapple wall clock behind the counter. "I best be off, I'll see you later."

Jasmine grinned as she walked out the door to Meredith's shop, a plan already taking form in her mind. So, instead of heading for home for some much needed sleep, she found herself heading in the direction of Draco's office.

Draco was busy reading files when she entered his office and wouldn't look up until she loudly cleared her throat.

"Good morning to you too." Draco commented as he turned his gaze to hers.

Jasmine smiled, "You're going to love me. So, Meredith invited you to her house tonight, right?" Draco nodded and Jasmine continued on, "Well, she invited me as well. However, I'm not going to go. You're going to go by yourself and tell her that something came up at work and I had to fill in. Which means that the two of you can have a nice dinner together alone."

"My Slytherin ways have rubbed off on you." Draco smirked. "But if this ends badly I blame you."

"No way, Draco. Tonight is on you and you alone. Now I must be going so I can go get some much needed sleep. Have a good time tonight."

With that said Jasmine went to his fireplace and flooed herself home.

Xxx

Draco would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous about the dinner tonight and really he almost wished Jasmine was coming after all. In the past all of his interactions with Meredith, though friendly, had been conducted in a customer based relationship. Tonight she had invited him into her home and had stretched their relationship to that of friendship.

He had never been this nervous about a dinner with a girl before. In fact, he had always been quite the ladies' man. Girls found his charm irresistible, but Draco already knew that his charm didn't work on Meredith and that put him at a disadvantage. He would have to be completely sincere and he figured looking his best wouldn't hurt any either.

So dressed in the sweater Jasmine had gotten him for his birthday, which she claimed made him look hot and the pair of jeans Jasmine had also said made his arse look fantastic, Draco made his way up the back stairs behind her shop and knocked on her door.

The door swung open a minute later to reveal Meredith dressed in a nice pair of jeans and a clingy blouse, which was a nice change from the t-shirts she wore to work in. The two took a minute to look each other over with pleased smiles before Meredith invited him in. Immediately the smells of delicious foods assailed his nose almost making him moan in pleasure.

"Where's Jasmine?"

"Something came up at work tonight and she had to fill in." Draco lied and for the first time in his life felt bad about lying.

Meredith smiled, "Well, I guess it's just you and me then."

However, with that smile she had just bestowed on him, he wasn't feeling so bad about the lie anymore.

"Something smells delicious." Draco remarked as he looked around her yellow kitchen decorated in pineapples. Draco smirked and wondered if her whole house was decorated that way.

"That would be dinner." Meredith replied. "But it's not quite done yet. Would you like a tour of my place?"

Draco nodded, "I'm curious to see how much pineapple memorabilia you have."

Meredith smiled and looked around her kitchen, "This is about it for my living quarters. The majority of my stuff is downstairs in the shop. Let's get started then. This is the kitchen and if we walk into this doorway this is the dining room slash living room."

Draco followed her into the room off of the kitchen and was surprised to see a huge black box which he knew as a muggle television sitting on top of a cabinet. The room itself was a lavender color and her couch and chairs a nice beige color. Her dining room table was tucked next to the wall with three mismatched chairs around it. On the walls were pictures however, they were not moving pictures. He wanted to get a closer look at them, but Meredith was already moving down the hall and he was forced to follow.

The hall was lined with pictures as well; however, these were moving pictures. From what he could see they were mostly from her school years and highlighted Quidditch matches, birthday parties, and graduation.

"Here's the bathroom." Meredith said and swung open a door to the little black and white bathroom. After a quick glance inside he followed her to the last door in the hallway and waited to see inside what he knew would be her bedroom.

"And this is my room."

When the door opened Draco immediately saw the queen sized bed in the middle of the room. The walls were painted a nice plum color and her bedspread was simply white as well as her pieces of furniture in the room. He could see that there were more pictures on her bedside tables, but didn't move any closer in respect for Meredith's privacy.

"This is a nice little place." Draco commented as the two of them headed back to the kitchen.

"Surely a lot smaller than what you're used to."

Draco nodded, "Yes, but bigger isn't always better."

Meredith quirked a brow at him before she went to remove dinner from the oven. Draco smiled in anticipation as she pulled out what looked to be baked spaghetti and garlic bread. But what really caught his attention was the cake resting under a special glass cover on the counter top.

Meredith followed his gaze after she placed the baked spaghetti on top of the stove and laughed.

"No dessert before dinner, Draco."

"What kind of cake is it?" He asked eagerly.

"Pineapple upside down cake, of course. Don't you remember our conversation from this morning?" Meredith replied, quirking a brow at him.

"Oh yeah! Pineapple, of course."

A few minutes later found the two of them at her small dining room table eating the delicious dinner she had prepared. It seemed that Meredith's talents went beyond baking and into the realm of cooking. Never before had Draco met a woman who was as skilled in the kitchen as she was. His mother had never even boiled water in her entire life and although Jasmine was good at making soups and various egg dishes, her attempts at more complicated recipes turned out disastrous.

"This is delicious." Draco commented as he reached for another helping of the bake.

Meredith smiled at his praise and continued to eat her own helping of the stuff. She had always loved making food for people and bringing a smile to their faces from their pleasure, but with Draco it was different. Seeing his pleasure at her cooking and baking never failed to bring a smile to her face as well, and the desire to keep making food for him only grew with every sigh of pleasure and look of ecstasy on his face.

"So, I'm curious about the school you went to." Draco stated. "Were there houses like Hogwarts?"

Meredith shook her head, "No, instead we were just classified by what year we were in. As for the dormitories, we were assigned three roommates our first year and continued to live with them until our last year."

Draco nodded his understanding, "How were Quidditch teams determined then?"

"There were four professors that were the coaches for the teams. At the beginning of every year, they all held try outs and anyone was able to try out for any team they wanted. Of course, there was a certain hierarchy to the teams. Professor Clockston's team was always the best because he was an amazing coach and once was a professional chaser, so I tried out for his team my second year and I made it in. Each year we were required to try out again and I was taken back every year."

"And were you the champions?"

Meredith nodded, "For the most part. We didn't win my first or third year, but every year after that we dominated the other three teams. At Hogwarts you play for a cup don't you?"

"Yes, it could quite brutal at times. Especially when we played Gryffindor."

"I can imagine." Meredith chuckled.

"How do you know so much about Hogwarts?"

"I've read _Hogwarts: A History_ about ten times."

Draco rolled his eyes, "Great, we've got another Granger on our hands."

Meredith laughed and began to clear the table with a wave of her wand. It was then that Draco realized that he had never really seen her perform magic up until this moment.

"Do you bake and cook without magic?" He asked curiously.

"I find the process soothing." She replied. "Sometimes using my magic too much makes me feel lazy."

"How odd."

Meredith shrugged her shoulders, "Not really."

"It's just that I was always taught to use my magic when I could."

"That's understandable, but that's not the way I work. I love magic, but there are times when I want to take the time to do a task myself no matter how long it takes. Now, how about some cake?"

Sure enough, Draco loved the pineapple upside down cake, if his moan of pleasure was any indication. After his first bite he immediately started to shovel it down and immediately reached for another piece when he had succeeded in shoveling down the last of his first piece.

"You are bloody brilliant." He declared as he rubbed his stomach contentedly after he had finished with his second piece of cake.

"Thank you." She smiled. "I like making you treats."

"Do you?" He grinned.

"I've always loved to make people food, but I've never seen someone love my treats as much as you."

Draco smirked and decided to use a little bit of his charm even though it hadn't worked on her in the past, "It helps that they're made by such a beautiful witch."

This time Meredith blushed and Draco smiled his victory. It seemed that she wasn't completely immune to his charm; however, he knew that Meredith was not like other witches and wouldn't be easily fooled by it. That's why sincerity was truly his best tool when it came to Meredith Evans.

"Let me be honest with you. It's more than just the pumpkin pasties that keep me coming to the bakery every morning. I love the pasties, but I like seeing you first thing in the morning before I go to work." Draco stated, the taste of the words 'let me be honest' tasting strange on his tongue.

"I like seeing you too, Draco. And I appreciate that you are using honesty instead of your charmer ways on me."

"You're not like other witches I've known." He remarked.

"I'd imagine not."

"I'd like to take you on a date."

"I'd like that."

"Great, how about tomorrow night? I'll come pick you up at six?"

"I guess I can close the shop early to get ready."

Xxx

When Draco flooed into her living room with a huge smile on his face, Jasmine didn't know whether to be happy or afraid for her life. She had never seen such an expression on his face before and it scared her.

"What's going on?" She asked in a panic as he walked over to her and pulled her into his arms for a tight hug.

"Thank you, Jasmine. You are brilliant!"

"I am?"

He finally pulled away to look her in the eyes, "My night with Meredith went amazing and she has agreed to go on a real date with me tomorrow night!"

Relieved, Jasmine smiled, "I knew it! Where are you taking her?"

"A restaurant I know in France that I think she'll love."

"Well, good luck."

"I don't need luck: I've got this in the bag." Draco replied with a confident smirk. "I better go and start making arrangements."

"Have fun!" Jasmine called as he walked back into her fireplace with a handful of floo powder.

After he was gone Jasmine sat for a minute on her couch debating what to do now that Draco had interrupted her quiet evening of aloneness and reading. She was about to raid her refrigerator for a snack when she heard a loud thump from across the hall. Realizing that she hadn't heard much from Theo since he slipped a note under her door saying he was going to the country for a while, she immediately rushed across the hall in her pajamas.

Instead of knocking on the door, Jasmine rushed right in and found Theo sprawled out on his living room floor. She immediately rushed over to him and started to shake him. That's when she noticed the blood coming from his nose and head. Her healing instincts taking over, she immediately pulled her wand from her robe pocket and began reciting healing spells. Once the bleeding had stopped she worked at cleaning away the blood before she finally managed to wake him up.

"What happened to you Theo?" She asked worriedly.

"Don't worry about it." He growled, sitting up abruptly causing Jasmine to fall back onto the living room floor. Theo immediately felt guilty and reached to help her back up, "I'm sorry, Jasmine. Thank you for taking care of me, but it was nothing."

"I don't believe that." She stated as she took in his ripped clothes, mussed hair, and the bruises covering various places on parts of his body that weren't covered by his clothes.

Theo sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "Well, it's nothing you need to worry over. I'm fine now, you can go back to your flat and go to sleep."

"Not bloody likely." Jasmine snapped. "You scare the hell out of me and then expect me to go to sleep as if nothing happened to you?"

"Why the hell do you care about me?!"

"There's something bad going on here and I can't ignore it."

Theo shook his head, "If this is your guilty conscience from the fire, get over it. Me getting burned was not your fault and this is none of your business."

Jasmine looked defeated at his words and Theo yet again felt guilty for his treatment of her, but it was necessary. What was going on was nothing anyone but himself needed to be worried about.

"At least let me get you some of the soup I have left over at my flat." She insisted.

"Fine."

After helping him to settle in and after bringing him a bowl of soup Jasmine grudgingly made her way back to her flat with a heavy heart. It was obvious that Theo was in some sort of trouble and she had a feeling it had to do with his behavior in the past and the scars she was sure were on the inside. However, trying to help him was becoming a bit more difficult than she had anticipated.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize I don't own **

**Remember: this is a Dramione, I promise.**

* * *

It took Meredith a long time to decide on what to wear on her date with Draco. She had a feeling that she needed to dress a bit fancy given that this was Draco Malfoy, but unfortunately, she did not possess a lot of fancy things in her wardrobe. Thankfully though, after a quickly written panicked owl message to Jasmine, she had gotten the perfect outfit to wear. Jasmine had sent over one of her dresses with the owl and instructed Meredith to feel free to alter it however she needed to. Luckily the dress only needed to be pulled in a little bit at the bust, as Jasmine was a bit more endowed than she was.

When Meredith stepped in front of her mirror, completely ready for her date, she made a mental note to make Jasmine the best thank you cake ever. The dress was navy blue with sparkles at the bust and at the knee length hem line. Thankfully the neck line wasn't too low and the straps were wide enough that she could have worn a bra with straps instead of the strapless one she had decided to wear. And luckily, Meredith had had a pair of silver heels in her closet left over from a few years ago when she was a bridesmaid. She'd decided to curl her long brown hair into loose curls that lay over her shoulders and down her back and put some eyeliner on her eyes, but nothing else.

After a moment of admiring her reflection there was a knock on the door and she moved to the kitchen quickly to let Draco in. When she opened the door she was happy to see that he was, in fact, as dressed up as she was. As he stopped in every morning before work, Meredith was used to seeing him in traditional robes, but tonight he wore a muggle suit. It was pinstriped, which happened to be a favorite of hers, and the gray shirt he wore underneath it served to bring out his grey eyes.

"That color looks brilliant on you." Draco said with a satisfied smile.

"I was thinking the same about that gray shirt." Meredith replied.

Draco's smile broadened and he held out a hand to Meredith, "If you're ready; I'll apparate us to our destination."

Meredith smiled and placed her hand in his larger, warmer one, "I'm ready."

Xxx

As the minutes slowly ticked by in the ward, Jasmine briefly wondered how Draco and Meredith's date was going. As soon as she had read Meredith's frantic note earlier about having nothing appropriate to wear, she had known immediately what dress of hers would look perfect on Meredith. She had never found the occasion to wear the dress herself and knew that the navy blue color would look gorgeous on the brunette.

She was torn from her musings when a tall man approached the desk with a toddler in his arms. A quick glance at the toddler revealed that it was a girl with dark curly hair and from the way her head was buried in the man's chest she could only guess that the girl was somehow hurt.

"Can I help you?" Jasmine asked kindly.

"This is the magical hospital right?" The man asked nervously, his eyes darting around the room.

Jasmine's brow wrinkled in thought. This man was obviously a muggle not just because of his question, but she could also tell from the clothes he wore. His jeans were worn and faded and the t-shirt he wore was for a muggle football team.

"Yes." Jasmine answered hesitantly.

"Good. She's had an accident with magic and I want you to get rid of it."

Now Jasmine was just plain confused, "I don't quite understand what you mean, sir. Is your daughter hurt?"

"No, but she will be if you don't remove the magic from her." He answered seriously.

"Sir, I'm afraid that's not possible. If you'd like, I can contact a therapist to help you adjust to your daughter's magic."

"No! I don't need someone to help me adjust. Her mother was a muggleborn, my sister, and I was hoping it wouldn't be passed on to her!"

"Did she have a magical outburst?"

"Yes. Now get a doctor and remove the magic!"

Jasmine tried her best to soothe the man, who was obviously very close to a mental break down or a very violent outburst, "Sir, I'm sure you know, since your sister was a witch, that removing magic is not something that can be done. Your niece is a witch."

"What's going on here?" Hermione asked as she approached the desk.

It was obvious to Hermione that something was going to happen if this man wasn't dealt with soon. He was obviously under a great deal of stress and the little girl was so afraid she hadn't even peaked out of her uncle's chest the entire time Hermione had been observing them from a distance.

After Jasmine explained the situation for Hermione, Hermione turned to the man with a comforting smile.

"Why don't we take a look at her and see what we can do? If you'll follow me? Jasmine, please see if we have a chart for her. What is your niece's name sir?"

"She was born here." He replied. "Her name is Margaret Nott."

With that said Hermione guided the man and his niece into an examination room, leaving Jasmine at the front desk to search for a chart for the girl. Of course the name 'Nott' hit a chord with Jasmine. Could this girl be related to Theo? But that seemed impossible if the girl's mother had been a muggle born and her uncle an obvious, slightly crazy, muggle. As far as she knew, Theo's family was strictly pureblood.

However, when she finally found the small chart for the little girl from just over two years ago, she was proven wrong. Margaret Nott had been born on September 2, 1999 to Hannah Nott, formerly Millard, and Theodore Nott. Jasmine's jaw dropped as she read the information that confirmed that not only had Theo been married to a muggleborn, but he had also had a child with her. But what had happened to Hannah and why was their daughter with Hannah's brother and not Theo?

Jasmine quickly located Hannah's chart and found quite easily that she had been murdered about a year ago. As it was just a chart from the hospital, there was nothing written about a possible killer or why she had been murdered, but Jasmine's mind leapt to conclusions anyway. Maybe someone from Theo's family had killed her because she was a muggleborn? But there was no way of knowing that for sure without asking Theo, and since she was pretty sure this was what his internal scars were about she knew she wouldn't get any answers.

Hermione approached the desk then, an uncertain look on her face.

"Something is not right here." She stated.

Jasmine nodded in agreement, "That's Theodore Nott's daughter. Take a look at these charts."

Jasmine waited patiently as Hermione looked over the charts and then looked back up at Jasmine in surprise. "Why is she with her uncle? Theo would have custody in both wizard and muggle worlds! I want you to contact Theo and the Ministry. There is something off about the uncle, especially with his demands to remove the magic from her. I'll stall as long as I can."

Jasmine nodded her head and quickly grabbed some parchment and a quill to quickly pen her letter to the Ministry as Hermione headed back into the exam room with the two. However, once the Ministry letter was on its way with one of the hospital owls, she found that she couldn't figure out what to say to Theo in a letter. But it had to be done, otherwise he probably wouldn't come.

Xxx

_Theo,_

_There is a situation at St. Mungo's that requires your immediate attention. I was hoping to be able to say this to you in person, but that doesn't seem to be prudent at the moment. A man has come in with a little girl wanting the 'magic removed from her' and a quick look at her charts has shown that you are her father. Healer Granger believes something is off with this man who claims to be her uncle and has asked me to contact both you and the Ministry. They will most likely be here when you arrive._

_Sincerely,_

_Jasmine_

The letter fell out of Theo's hands and fluttered down to the carpeted floor of his living room. Could it possibly be true? After a year without his little girl and his wife would he get at least one of them back? He touched a hand to his neck where some of the bruises were still present. The bastard had given those to him when he had tried to take his daughter back. For a muggle he was very resourceful, and because he was a muggle Theo could not use magic on him. But now it seemed that he would be caught and shown to be just as insane as Theo had always known he was.

When Theo arrived at St. Mungos a few Ministry workers were already there waiting for him, along with Jasmine, who wore an encouraging smile when she saw him approach. His daughter and the bastard were nowhere in sight, but that just meant he had the element of surprise on his side.

"Mr. Nott, is it true that Margaret Nott is your daughter?" One of the officials asked.

"Yes. After my wife was murdered by some muggle gang violence her brother went insane and took her from me claiming it was my magic that had killed Hannah and would kill Maggie." He replied easily. "I tried to get her back through the muggle legal system but he told me he would tell them I had killed Hannah and I would never see Maggie again. After that I tried to steal her away, but he caught me."

The official nodded, "We contacted the muggle authorities and have already been here to remove him into their custody. He shouldn't be a problem for you ever again."

"And where's Maggie?" He asked eagerly, his heart feeling lighter than it had in the past year.

It wasn't the officials that answered, instead Jasmine touched his arm gently and smiled up at him, "I'll take you to her."

Theo followed Jasmine eagerly to an exam room where Hermione Granger was examining his daughter. His first instinct was to rush to her immediately, but a staying hand from Jasmine stopped him. He waited another minute as Granger finished her exam and turned to him with a smile.

"She's all yours." She said and then left the room.

Jasmine knew she should leave the room too, but she found herself rooted to the floor as Theo walked over to the table where his daughter sat staring up at him curiously. She was obviously too young to remember who her father was, but thankfully she wouldn't be able to remember this separation once she was older.

"Oh Maggie, I've missed you." He cried and scooped her up into his arms.

Xxx

"This food is delicious!" Meredith exclaimed after taking her first bite of their main course at the elegant French restaurant Draco had brought her to. Surprisingly the restaurant was a muggle place, but after tasting the food it was easy to see why Draco loved coming here.

"That's the first time it's been you saying that instead of me." Draco grinned as he poured more wine into their glasses.

While waiting for their dinner it had been his turn to share about his school and supplement the information she knew about Hogwarts from _Hogwarts: A History_. Of course, he had steered away from the stories relevant to the presence of the Dark Lord in their school and his cruelty to the Golden Trio, and he had just plain avoided talking about his sixth year altogether. Not that it mattered, she knew all about it anyway. But at least she seemed to understand why he didn't talk about it and was fine with that.

"So, you were in the middle of telling me about the different traits of the houses." Meredith said, diverting the conversation back to what they had been talking about before the food arrived.

"Oh yes, I left off with Slytherins of course. Sly, cunning, brilliant-"

"Sneaky, underhanded-"

"Alright, alright, I've already told you about those Hufflepuff tossers and the Gryffindor arses. All that's left is Ravenclaw. They're the brainiest of the lot, although, Granger was the obvious exception since she was a Gryffindor. Most of the Ravenclaws I knew had no time for other pursuits other than their studies, but their Quidditch team wasn't too terrible. Some are very clever as well, others have no common sense whatsoever, but I suppose that makes up for their intelligence in everything else."

Meredith laughed, "What house do you think I would have been in?"

Draco looked her over appraisingly, "Well, you do look good in navy blue and that is their house color. You're definitely not a Hufflepuff and, although you are brave, if going on a date with me is any indication, you are not a Gryffindor. And since we both know you wouldn't be a Slytherin, I would have to go with Ravenclaw."

Meredith nodded with a smile, "That's what I always thought too."

"You mean you knew what each house was like already?"

"Of course, I read _H-"_

"_Hogwarts: A History, _I know. Bloody hell, how much information is in that blasted book?"

"Maybe you should find out for yourself."

"Not bloody likely."

Meredith rolled her eyes, "Merlin forbid you read a book."

"I read books!" Draco cried defensively.

"Like what?"

Draco was quiet for a long time before he finally replied, "Okay, so I read the paper."

Meredith smirked in her triumph.

"I change my mind, that smirk of victory was completely Slytherin." Draco laughed.

"I think you're just rubbing off on me."

"I'd like to continue to do that."

Meredith quirked a brow in question at him.

"Not like that! I meant going on another date with me!" Draco said quickly, feeling his cheeks heat at what Meredith had thought he meant.

Meredith laughed at his flushed expression. Draco Malfoy, the feared Slytherin, was actually blushing and embarrassed! It was almost too good to be true, but yet it was happening right in front of her eyes.

"I know what you meant; I was just giving you a hard time." She chuckled. "And yes, I'd love to go on another date with you."

Xxx

It was obvious that Theo was out of his element, if the state of his flat was any indication. It had been a few days since he had been able to bring Maggie home and, while he was beyond happy to have his daughter back, he had no idea how to handle a two year old. The last time he had interacted with her, before Hannah was murdered, she was just barely starting to stand up and now she was running all over the place.

Thankfully though, Maggie had taken to calling him Daddy, and the two of them had been able to bond quite easily over the last few days. Unfortunately that did not leave time for other things.

So, when there was a knock on the door and he opened the door to Jasmine, he wasn't surprised to see her surprised gaze wander around his living room where Maggie was currently stacking blocks and knocking them down all over the place.

"It looks like a tornado has been through here." She commented. "I was just coming to check in."

Theo nodded, "I can't keep up with her."

"Are you disciplining her?" Jasmine asked. "Because from the looks of things it appears you're letting her get away with everything."

"Discipline her? I just got her back."

Jasmine crossed her arms over her chest and sent him a stern look, "Children need rules and structure."

"Yeah? How would you know?" He shot back.

"Well, I guess having a ton of siblings helps, not to mention the fact that my Mother runs a day care that I was expected to help her out with during the summers."

Theo sighed, "Fine. How do I do it? My parents just let me do whatever I wanted and the house elf cleaned up after me."

Jasmine rolled her eyes, "Typical pureblooded neglect. Watch and learn, Theo."

With that said Jasmine walked the rest of the way into his flat and headed to where Maggie was currently pulling books off of his bookshelf and scattering them all across the floor. She stared down at the child for a minute before she took the stance her mother always had when disciplining a child: hands on hips and feet spread apart.

"Maggie," She said sternly, catching the girl's attention before she continued on: "I'm Miss Jasmine, a friend of your Daddy's. Now, this mess you've made needs to be cleaned up before dinner or there will be no dessert."

"No!" Maggie screamed.

"Yes." Jasmine countered sternly. "I'll even show you how it's done. You see, your Daddy likes a clean house and doesn't want to have to keep dessert from you, but if the house isn't clean he can't possibly make food."

Jasmine started to place books back on the shelf and then stopped and turned to Maggie. Maggie stared at her for a minute before she grabbed a book and slipped it onto the shelf herself. Then the two of them moved on to her mess of toys scattered across the living room. Jasmine only had to pick up a few and watched as Maggie did the rest.

"Don't be such a push over, Theo." Jasmine stated as she walked over to his side. "Anyway, make sure you give her dessert tonight since I mentioned it."

"You're leaving?" He asked in surprise as Jasmine headed to the door. "Could you stay?"

Jasmine shook her head sadly, "You need to finish this tonight. I'll see you around."

Xxx

"Theo has a child!?"

Jasmine nodded and stirred her strawberry daiquiri around with her straw. Draco made the best strawberry daiquiris, which was quite surprising since he didn't actually drink them himself. Instead, he preferred to drink fire whiskey. Tomorrow night was his second date with Meredith and he had invited Jasmine over for more ideas. After deciding that he should take her to Hogsmeade, they had strayed onto the topic of Theo.

"And he was married to a muggleborn who was murdered by a muggle gang."

Draco shook his head, "Who would have imagined? He kept that a tight secret that's for sure."

"Well, he definitely didn't want to talk about the situation after his child was taken from him by his insane muggle brother in law."

"No wonder he was drinking and whoring."

"He does seem a lot better. Instead, he's dealing with raising a toddler, which is no easy task. I had to teach him how to discipline her last night!"

"His parents were very detached. Lots of us were always punished and reprimanded, but Theo was just ignored and left to his own devices."

"I think he also feels guilty if he has to discipline her because of the year he's missed out on." Jasmine added, "But I think I got through to him."

Draco narrowed his eyes at his best friend, "You are awfully concerned with his welfare lately. It was only a while ago when you were so scared of him that you were drooling on my silk coverlet."

"Shut up."

"Don't tell me you want to get involved with Nott?"

"I'm only trying to help him! For Merlin's sake…how did we even get on this topic? We should be talking about Meredith and your date." Jasmine said in exasperation before taking a long draw of her daiquiri.

Draco sighed; he knew that Jasmine was lying. He could tell she was drawn to Theo and he knew that it was only a matter of time before there was something more between them besides just helping him out. He knew Theo and he knew Jasmine: it was easy to be drawn to her. For them it had turned into friendship, but that wasn't going to happen twice.

Xxx

By the time December arrived Draco had lost track of how many dates he and Meredith had gone on. In fact, the number didn't even matter at this point because he was pretty sure they were exclusive. Neither one of them had said anything to that effect, but it was obvious to anyone who saw them together that they were too wrapped up in each other to even think about seeing other people.

Meanwhile, Jasmine found herself at Theo's flat a lot more than was probably healthy for Maggie. The little girl had to be confused about who Jasmine was in her life, especially since she found herself having to discipline her since her own father couldn't bring himself to do it. It was a weird situation: she technically had no right to punish the child, but Theo insisted and some nights wouldn't let her leave until Maggie was settled into bed.

"You need to quit raising Nott's kid for him. She's not your responsibility." Draco stated as he took in his exhausted friend. She was currently sprawled out on her bed, dark circles under her eyes and her blonde hair a mess.

"Draco-"

"Stand up for yourself. He's using you so he isn't the bad guy in his kid's life."

Jasmine knew Draco was right and that annoyed her, especially since she knew that _he_ knew he was right. However, the situation was a bit more complicated than he made it sound. For one thing, she was pretty sure she was falling for Theodore Nott and his adorable daughter, Maggie. Did Theo have feelings for her? She doubted it. Yes, he was very grateful for what she did for him, but the man never even flirted with her yet alone touched her. She was a mess.

"So, what are you and Meredith doing for Christmas?"

"She's going to Hawaii to visit her Grandmother." Draco replied.

Jasmine's eyes widened, "You should go too!"

He shook his head, "I can't invite myself along like that: it's rude."

"Well, maybe she'll ask you. So, is she closing her shop while she's gone?"

"Yes, for two weeks over the holidays. Besides, we've only been dating for about two months. It's probably too soon for me to tag along with her on a long trip like that, especially that far away."

Jasmine shook her head, "I can't believe it. You're actually unsure of yourself right now! It's cute!"

"Malfoys are not cute."

Xxx

She was weak. Yet again she had found herself at Theo's flat, only this time she was there babysitting Maggie while he was out on a date! A date for Merlin's sake while she was left at home parenting his child the way she needed to be parented! She really wanted to be bitter and resentful about the whole situation, but since the door had closed behind Theo, and Maggie had smiled up at her, she couldn't be that way about it. Whether she liked it or not she was in love with Theo, but she definitely liked being in love with the smaller, younger Nott.

"Sory! Sory!" Maggie cried as Jasmine pulled the covers up to her shoulders.

Jasmine smiled; she knew exactly what Maggie wanted and it wasn't to apologize. She wanted a bedtime story: something that she had started to do for her a month ago and had immediately become a must have with the toddler. Thankfully, she had been able to get Theo to do it, but Maggie very openly preferred Jasmine to read her bedtime story.

After grabbing Maggie's favorite, 'A Dragon named Fluffy' Jasmine settled on the edge of the bed and positioned the book so Maggie could see the pictures while she read the words aloud. Jasmine had barely made it through the first couple pages when the little girl's eyes closed and a tall figure appeared in the bedroom doorway.

Jasmine carefully stood up from the bed and placed the book back in its rightful place as Theo walked in and carefully placed a kiss on Maggie's forehead. While she felt her traitorous heart melt, she knew that she had to put an end to this tonight, whether she liked it or not.

"Theo, can I talk to you before I go?" She whispered, gesturing to the living room.

He nodded and followed her out of Maggie's bedroom, shutting the door softly behind him, and then followed her to the living room. He waited for her to sit down, but when it became apparent that she would much rather pace back and forth he decided to sit down instead.

"This has to stop. You can't keep using me like this to raise your daughter. I love your daughter, I really do, but you can't just expect me to care for her when I have no duty to her. She's your daughter and that you would rather go on some date tonight and leave your daughter with me, a woman she has no idea what role I play in her life, was my tipping point. I can't do it anymore. If there's ever an emergency you know where to find me."

Then, before Theo could even finish processing all that she had said, she walked out of the flat closing the door behind her softly as to not waken Maggie.

Theo sat on the couch for a while. His date had been a disaster tonight, but he knew it was going to be anyway. The whole night he had been thinking about Jasmine: just like he had been for the past month! The date was a last ditch effort to try to get the witch out of his head! But every time he saw her with his daughter, like tonight with the story, it was impossible to banish the thoughts of her from his head! And if he was honest with himself, the only reason he had been only too happy to pass off his parenting on to her had been to see her. Although, there was a small part of him that did feel like a monster when telling Maggie 'no' made her cry.

It was obvious that Jasmine would never feel the same for him, and just as she requested he would leave her alone and raise his daughter alone: like he should have been doing from the very first moment he got her back.

Xxx

Draco sat on Meredith's bed happily munching on the pumpkin pastie she had presented to him when he arrived at her door about ten minutes ago. Meredith was currently packing her bags for her trip to Hawaii for the Holidays and had invited Draco over for dinner, which was currently in the oven.

"Is it just going to be you and your Grandmother?" Draco asked curiously as Meredith continued to pack the muggle way. He had already suggested she just use her wand, but she wouldn't hear of it. He had also tried to persuade her to get a portkey made or arrange for international apparation, but she refused, saying her Grandmother had already bought her a ticket on one of those muggle death traps in the sky.

"And her animals." Meredith replied with a smile.

"What about your parents?" He asked cautiously, fully aware that the only family she had ever really mentioned at any length was her Grandmother.

"Just Grams and I." She replied simply. "You're spending Christmas with your Mother aren't you?"

Draco shook his head, "Mother has claimed me for Christmas Eve, but Jasmine wants me to come to her family Christmas, which should be interesting."

Meredith smiled, "Jasmine's family sounds great, and I bet you'll have a good time. And there will probably be good food there too."

"Not as good as yours." Draco pouted.

Meredith arched a brow, "Are you whining because I'm leaving for a few weeks?"

Draco straightened immediately, "I do not whine."

"That's not what I've heard." Meredith chuckled. "Hermione Granger has become a loyal customer of mine and told me about a certain incident in your third year with Buckbeak."

"Bloody beast."

Meredith started laughing hysterically, remembering all that Hermione had told her about that incident. Meredith knew that Draco was a much different man than he had been thirteen year old boy, but there were still traces of that boy left, which was evident in his 'bloody beast' comment. She found it endearing though, and as she laughed she wrapped her arms around Draco's waist and laughed into his chest.

"That thing was dangerous." He continued defensively as his own arms came around her and held her to his chest. He breathed in the smell of Meredith and grinned despite the fact she was still laughing at his expense.

"Was it really?" She asked with a devious smirk as she looked up into his eyes.

Draco decided that this was his moment. At this point he and Meredith had only held hands, hugged, and kissed on the cheek, but he wasn't about to send her off to Hawaii for two weeks without getting a proper kiss out of her. Plus, he wanted to shut her up about that bloody beast, Buckbeak.

Before he could change his mind, or she could pull away, he lowered his lips down onto hers. Meredith sighed at the contact and tightened her arms around his middle as she reciprocated the kiss. It wasn't a very long or very passionate kiss, but as the two of them pulled away they were both grinning like idiots at each other. However, the moment was ruined a moment later when the timer on the oven dinged.

Xxx

Meredith had originally wanted Draco to accompany her to the airport, but after he started ranting and raving about the muggle death traps she decided it was best to bring Jasmine along as well. Not only would she help Meredith keep him quiet in the muggle taxi, but also in the airport where she was sure he would have things to say. It didn't bother her though, she knew the reason he complained about it was because he was worried for her safety using transportation he had no experience with.

Sure enough, he had entered the car with a suspicious look at the contraption and the driver before Meredith coaxed him in with a gentle hand. Then, she had slipped him the box of goodies she had made for the occasion: to not only keep his mouth occupied, but to get him in a better mood.

By the time the three of them arrived at the airport Draco was on a sugar high, which only made him that much more paranoid of the things going on around him at the airport. Never in his life had he been surrounded by this many muggles at one time. It was slightly disturbing watching them rush around with weird things held up to their ears talking to themselves, which only served to make him more anxious.

"It's not too late to get a portkey made, Meredith." He urged as he slipped a protective arm around her waist.

Meredith chuckled, "I'll be fine, but this is where we part. I'll see you in a few weeks, okay?"

He nodded blankly and Meredith quickly wrapped her arms around his middle. When she pulled away she stood on her tiptoes and placed a chaste kiss on his lips knowing that Draco wasn't about to get too affectionate in a place like this. She then turned to Jasmine and gave her a hug.

"Have a good Christmas with him." Meredith smiled.

"Oh, I'll make him be jolly." Jasmine grinned.

After Meredith was out of sight Jasmine grabbed Draco's hand and led him to the exit from the building. Somehow she managed to get him back into another taxi and had them dropped off on a street corner where they then snuck down an alley and apparated back to Draco's flat.

"If that muggle death trap kills her, I swear I will-"

"What will you do?" Jasmine asked skeptically. "Thousands of muggles fly on airplanes everyday and are alright. Meredith will be fine."

Draco shook his head, "I knew I should have insisted she get a portkey."

"Well, nothing you can do about it now. Besides, you promised me you would go Christmas shopping with me as it's my only day to do so."

Draco certainly was not thrilled with the idea of shopping with Jasmine, but he didn't protest when she grabbed his hand and apparated the both of them out of his flat and to Diagon Alley.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize I don't own **

**A special thank you to those who are re-reading this story and still commenting! And thank you to the others as well!**

* * *

Draco's Christmas Eve with his mother had been as formal as ever and cut short when she received a mysterious owl. Since his father's death a few years ago he suspected his mother had a lover somewhere else: not that he cared that much. He and his mother weren't very close and really only saw each other on holidays or when they needed something from one another. But then again…that had been how he was raised.

So, on Christmas day he found himself at Jasmine's childhood home in the country with all of her siblings in attendance. To say he was overwhelmed was an understatement. Not only did she have a number of younger siblings, the youngest being eight years old, she had two older brothers who had small children of their own! It was a mad house. All they needed was red hair and they'd look like the Weasleys, Draco thought with a smirk.

"Draco dear, can I get you anything more to drink?" Jasmine's mother asked kindly after all of the gifts had been opened and all the children had raced off to play with their new toys.

Draco smiled politely at the lady, she was truly a nice woman, but as a guy who had never experienced maternal caring he was a bit uncomfortable with the attention. Jasmine seemed to sense his unease and stepped in giving her Mother a hug of thanks.

"No thank you, I better get Draco back to the city so we can open our gifts to each other." Jasmine smiled.

"Alright, but don't be a stranger, you too Draco."

"Thank you Mrs. Bishop."

Once the two of them were back at Draco's flat he breathed a sigh of relief. That much family was very overwhelming, but he couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy. As a child he had often wished for a sibling to run around the manor and play pretend with, but his wish had never come true. Even now as an adult he wished he had a sibling to talk and confide to as he had seen Jasmine do tonight with her younger sister. That's why he swore to himself that if he ever had children he would have more than one. Being an only child was bloody lonely.

"So, thank you for surviving that with me even though everyone kept asking if you were my boyfriend." Jasmine chuckled as she walked over to Draco's small Christmas tree where she had placed his gift.

"They don't know we slept together do they?" He asked curiously as he followed her to the tree where he had also placed her gift hours earlier.

"My oldest sister does, but I swore her to secrecy."

"That explains that strange look she gave me! She knows that we're just friends, right?"

"Yes, don't worry about it. Now, open this up. You're bloody impossible to buy for, but I think I might have found something that suits you."

Draco smirked as he took the gift from her. They had had the same conversation about how he was hard to buy for at his last birthday. After all, what did you buy a guy who seemed to have everything he could possibly want? At his birthday it had been massage coupons from Jasmine, as her beginning salary left a lot to be desired, not that Draco minded. He'd used all the coupons within a month.

"What's it going to be this time?" He asked as he gently shook the parcel wrapped in shiny green paper with a big red bow on the top. "More coupons?"

Jasmine shook her head, "That would be inappropriate given the fact that you have a girlfriend now, Draco. Just open the bloody gift already."

Draco finally decided to rip into the paper, throwing pieces of shiny green paper into the air as he went. When all the paper had been removed Draco stared down at his gift. It was a cookbook…for English men.

"Now before you say anything let me explain." Jasmine said eagerly. "I kept thinking to myself 'what can I possibly get Draco this year?' And then I thought that you have been thoroughly enjoying all of Meredith's cooking over the past few months, so shouldn't you reciprocate?"

Draco quirked an eyebrow at his friend and her over eager explanation. She did have a point. Although, Draco found that he did like some of the dishes she had presented him with and he was eager to see her make some English dishes. So, maybe if he started to make them he could teach her how and then hers would be ten times better than his and he'd be all set for the future! That was not what Jasmine had intended for the book, but that's how Draco decided he was going to use it.

"Alright, open yours now." He insisted as he set his book aside.

Before Meredith had left for Hawaii he'd asked her to wrap Jasmine's gift and had been proud with her skills when he'd seen the shiny silver wrapping with red ribbon wrapped around it. It seemed that she wasn't just an artist when it came to food.

"I know you did not wrap this." She laughed as she carefully removed the bow.

Draco shook his head, "Meredith did."

"It's beautiful."

Draco scoffed, "It's just the wrapping! Open it already!"

Then, much to Draco's annoyance, Jasmine carefully removed the paper so as not to rip it. Once she had finally finished revealing the box, she quickly pulled the top off and looked down at her gift.

"Now you can drool on your own."

Jasmine smiled wide as she pulled out her very own set of silk sheets in magenta, which happened to be her favorite color. Then, before Draco knew what was coming to him, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.

"I've always wanted silk sheets!"

"Just be careful not to wear silk pajamas, otherwise you'll slide right out." Draco joked.

Jasmine laughed and pulled away, "What did you get Meredith for Christmas?"

"We haven't exchanged gifts. But she'll find her present when she gets back from Hawaii. It's waiting for her in her shop."

"What is it?!" Jasmine asked eagerly.

"If you must know, I found her a pineapple to add to her collection."

Xxx

It was early on Boxing Day when Draco was awakened by the sound of someone pounding on his front door. He had absolutely no idea who would be calling at this hour, yet alone using the front door instead of the floo.

Rolling out of bed with a sigh of annoyance, Draco threw on his robe and headed down the hall to the front door. A quick peek through the peep hole revealed a man Draco had never seen before in his life, however, there was something about the man that had Draco opening the door to him.

"Can I help you?" Draco asked as he opened the door to the man.

Said man was about Draco's height with oddly familiar brown hair and eyes, and when he opened his mouth it became apparent why he seemed familiar to him, "I found your address at my sister's shop. Do you know where she is?"

If the American accent didn't give the man away the mention of Meredith's shop confirmed his identity. So Meredith had a brother? He had no way of knowing that before since she had never brought up any family besides her Grandmother in Hawaii.

"She's gone on Holiday." Draco replied vaguely, not wanting to give away anything if Meredith didn't want her brother to know.

"Damn, she's probably gone to Hawaii. I just spent the night on a plane across the ocean!"

Draco's brow wrinkled in confusion, "What is it with you and your sister taking those muggle deathtraps when there are perfectly good portkeys to be used or applying for international apparation?"

It was Meredith's brother's turn to wrinkle his brow in confusion at Draco's words before understanding lit his features, "You're one of them aren't you? Magic folk: like my sister. Well good, you can help me out then. I need to get to Hawaii immediately and I'd rather not fly on a plane again."

However, Draco stopped listening to him after he heard the words that revealed that Meredith was a muggleborn. For a brief moment he tried to convince himself that her brother was a squib, but then he realized that the truth had been there all along for him to see. The way she did almost everything the muggle way, all of her recipes, her admiration of Hermione Granger: it had been in front of him the entire time!

"Excuse me, Mr. Malfoy, are you listening?"

"I'm afraid you never introduced yourself." Draco said, snapping himself from his thoughts.

"Marcus Evans, now can you help me get to Hawaii the magical way?"

Xxx

With Draco's connections it didn't take long to get them a portkey to Hawaii and back. Although, the Ministry had been hesitant at first when they found out his traveling companion was a muggle. After assuring them that the man had known about magic since it was revealed his younger sister was a witch, the Ministry gave in and made the portkey.

The portkey was a muggle pen, which Marcus looked down at disdainfully when Draco held it out for him to touch in the moment before it activated. After a moment's hesitation Marcus placed a finger on it and yelled out in surprise when it activated and the two of them were pulled along to Hawaii.

Marcus' landing was rough, as was to be expected, and Draco couldn't help the little satisfied smile that lit his features as he gracefully landed onto the Hawaiian turf. Marcus glared up at him from his position on the ground and then slowly made his way back onto his feet.

"A warning would have been nice."

"Yes, well, not being woken up so early this morning would have been nice as well." Draco replied. "So, why the rush to get here anyway?"

"That's not any of your business." Marcus replied. "I thank you for getting me here, but if Meredith hasn't told you it isn't my place to tell you. Anyway, it looks like we're only a little ways from Grams' house."

Draco didn't reply, but instead followed along behind Marcus as he led the way down the road. It seemed as if they had been walking forever, sweat pouring down Draco's face, when they finally came across a quaint little house tucked in amongst the palm trees.

Marcus wasted no time knocking on the front door with as much urgency as he had done only hours ago to Draco's own front door. Meanwhile, Draco stood back with his hands tucked in his pockets contemplating the gaps that had been filled in about Meredith's life. Even though the evidence was before him, he needed to hear it from her to make it one hundred percent real to him.

"Marcus? What are you doing here?" Meredith asked in surprise as she opened the front door. "Is that Draco?!"

"Yes, I flew all the way to London to find you gone. I found his address and he got us a pen to get us here." Marcus replied as he pushed his way into the house, leaving Meredith at the threshold looking at Draco dumbly.

"Is it true?" He asked simply.

"Is what true?"

Draco shook his head, "Don't play dumb, Meredith. Either your brother is a squib, which doesn't seem very likely, or you're a muggleborn."

She just lowered her head and stared down at her bare feet instead of answering him.

"Say it: I want to hear you say it."

She looked up suddenly, her eyes flashing, "Why does it matter?! Yeah, so what?! I'm a muggleborn. I spent a whole decade of my life thinking I was a freak until one day my Headmistress came to my front door and explained that I wasn't a freak and that I did belong somewhere! But then what did I find out once arriving at school? That, yet again, I was a freak and that I should be thankful I was in North America instead of Europe where a maniac and his lackeys were killing people like me. So, excuse me for not saying anything to you about it because I thought that since the war was over and you had supposedly changed that it wouldn't matter anyway."

With that said Meredith turned abruptly back into the house and slammed the door behind her, giving Draco no chance to reply to her words. Not that he could think of any anyways after that tirade. He stood there for a minute collecting his thoughts when he felt wards go up all around the house, sending him backwards until he was at the edge of the yard staring back at the house in disbelief. He could faintly see her in the window, her wand raised as she put up wards to keep him away.

Draco shook his head and reached into his pocket for the pen that had brought him here in the first place. Marcus could find his own way back to wherever it was he was going. Draco wasn't going to stick around here where he obviously wasn't wanted.

Xxx

"Draco Malfoy you complete and utter arse!"

Draco flinched as Jasmine continued to lay into him after he had described what had happened from the moment Marcus Evans had pounded on his front door to the moment he had activated the portkey to bring him back home.

"Don't tell me that her blood status matters to you." She said dangerously after finishing off her insults for the moment.

When Draco was silent she launched into another round of insults, "You wanker! What the bloody hell is wrong with you?! Meredith is such a lovely girl and a brilliant witch! So what if she likes to do things the muggle way or that she was born into a muggle family? She is just as worthy as you to have magic, you slick git! I've got muggle blood in me, does that make me any less worthy to be your friend, or possess magic? No!"

Draco sighed, "Nothing would make you any less worthy to be my friend, Jasmine."

"Well, I'm not concerned about that at the moment. However, our friendship may not survive this, Draco. I can't believe you."

Draco slammed his hand down forcefully on the counter before him, making his glass of water and bowl of oatmeal jump slightly and his hand throb enormously. But the slam had done what he had wanted it to do in the first place, get Jasmine's attention and shut her up for a moment.

"You never let me get in a word in and neither did Meredith. You both jumped to unfair conclusions!"

"Okay, then fill me in on what you're thinking about this situation."

"I'm not going to lie the fact that she is a muggleborn did give me pause but not because her blood status matters to me. I'm not that person anymore, however, I can't help but wonder how the hell she can like me when she knows what me and my family have done in the past to people like her. My Father killed muggleborns, Jasmine, and I almost followed him down that path…willingly at times! How can I ever look her in the eyes again knowing that if my Father were alive he would like nothing more than to see her dead?"

Jasmine's eyes softened and immediately she regretted all the things she had called him, as well as threatening that they wouldn't be friends anymore! If only Meredith had let him explain, then she would have understood why her blood status did matter, but not in the way that she thought.

"Oh Draco, you know Meredith never viewed you as that person even though she knew all the facts. That's how she can like you: because she knows you completely as the person you are now. The same can be said for me, Draco. I never knew you when you were like that and, even though I knew all those things about you and your family, I'm your friend."

Draco ran a frustrated hand through his already mussed blond hair, which only served as a testament to how distressed he was, because his hair was never this out of place…ever. "She'll never give me a chance to explain now."

"That's not true, Meredith is a good person. Once she calms down you'll be able to explain. However, you'll have to wait until she gets back from Hawaii."

Draco nodded, "There's something else going on there. She never told me anything about her family besides her Grandmother and suddenly her brother is showing up at my door."

"Probably something happened and honestly, you guys haven't known each other that long to bare all secrets."

"She knew all of mine."

"Well, yours are kind of public knowledge. But I bet there are things about you that you haven't told her yet. It's the same thing. Things like that take time. That's why people date: to get to know each other."

Sick of wallowing in his own self pity and talking about it to death with Jasmine, Draco decided to change the subject.

"I haven't heard you talk about Theo or his daughter lately."

It was Jasmine's turn to be on the spot, "Well, I took your advice and told him that he needed to parent his own daughter and that it wasn't fair that he keep using me. Since then I haven't heard a thing and, quite frankly, I'm worried."

Draco shook his head, "Don't be; it's not your job."

"But I bonded with Maggie, Draco! I can't just forget about that child!"

"If you're so worried, go knock on his door."

"I can't do that after all that I said to him!"

Draco shook his head, "I will never understand your mind at times, Jasmine."

Xxx

On her day off Jasmine's first priority was to sleep in. However, her plans were thwarted as usual. At eight in the morning, according to the clock beside her bed, the sound of crashing and a child's cry reached her ears. Jasmine sat up in bed and listened for a minute more only to hear the crying increase in volume, which prompted her into motion.

She grabbed her robe and quickly threw it on as she grabbed her wand and ran out of her flat and across the hall to Theo's door. Without bothering to knock, Jasmine cast an unlocking spell and barged into the flat, looking around frantically for Maggie.

What she found was a bookshelf knocked over and Theo holding Maggie, rocking her back and forth, trying to no avail to quiet her tears.

"What is going on in here?" Jasmine asked as she made her way over to the two of them.

Maggie's head whipped around to face Jasmine when she heard her voice and immediately her cries ceased. Theo looked amused as he watched the disheveled Jasmine head over to him after practically breaking down his front door. However, he was also relieved to see her because she was the whole reason that this incident had happened in the first place.

Maggie reached out her hands for Jasmine and with a smile Jasmine happily took her from Theo and set her on her hip, rocking the toddler back and forth.

"What happened?"

Theo grabbed his wand from his pocket and started to put things back to rights with the bookshelf, "We had a bit of accidental magic when I told her that Jasmine wasn't here and I didn't know when she would be."

Jasmine felt her own eyes water at that, "She missed me?"

Theo nodded, "Desperately. We've had minor incidents before this over you, but today was the worst."

"I feel so horrible!" Jasmine cried and hugged the little girl tighter to her. "No wonder you're so happy to see me, Mags. I'm so sorry, baby. I won't stay away from you anymore. I'll read your bedtime stories and come and play with you whenever I can."

"But what about what you said, Jasmine?" Theo asked cautiously as he watched the witch place kisses on the top of his daughter's head. He had missed her just as much as Maggie had, however, he hadn't thrown any tantrums about it. Since that night she had blown up at him he'd settled into the role of Father wonderfully: punishing when necessary and reading her so many bedtime stories that he woke up a few times in her bed hours later. He also hadn't been on a date since that night, even though he could have used the distraction of another woman to get Jasmine out of his mind.

"Well, there has to be boundaries, obviously. But I've already made an impression with Maggie and I can't ignore her. I will make one thing clear: I will not be her babysitter so you can go out on dates."

"I'm not going out on any dates, so you don't have to worry."

"Okay then. Well, I have the day off today and I was planning on going to visit Draco at work. He's been depressed lately. I could maybe give you a break and take her with me, if you don't mind?"

Theo shook his head, thinking of all the things he needed to get but didn't have time to with all of Maggie's tantrums lately. "Be my guest, I've got to go grocery shopping and tie up some ends with the muggle police about her uncle."

Jasmine nodded, "I'll bring her back in time for bed."

Xxx

"What is that on your hip?"

"A toddler."

"Whose toddler?" Draco asked with an arched brow as he took in the sight of Jasmine and the small child at the threshold of his office.

"This is Maggie Nott and, before you say anything, you did not witness what her angry accidental magic caused when she was told I was not around yet again."

"Fine, fine. How was Theo?"

"He seemed stressed, but it appears he has embraced his role of father gracefully. However, it's obvious I am to be a part of Maggie's life. She won't have it any other way and neither will I. Now, come on we're going to lunch, your treat."

Draco rolled his eyes but got up from his desk chair and led the way to his fireplace. Jasmine followed with Maggie and the three of them flooed into Diagon Alley to go to the small café that was a favorite of both Draco's and Jasmine's. They received a few curious stares because of Maggie, but neither of them paid them any mind as they ordered food.

"Here, hold her for a second will you?" Jasmine asked as she held Maggie out to him. "I've got to cut this up for her in smaller pieces."

Draco had never before held a child in his life, but at the moment he had no other choice but to accept the toddler from Jasmine and hold her awkwardly under the armpits. After a minute she squirmed uncomfortably and let out a little squeak which made Jasmine look up from her cutting.

"Draco, set her down on your lap. Don't hold her there like that."

"Well, excuse me, but I've never held a child before."

"It's time you learned. Maybe I'll even let you change her nappie later."

"Not bloody likely." Draco shot back as he settled Maggie on his lap a bit awkwardly. Once she was down on his left thigh, he wrapped his left arm around her to stabilize her so she didn't slide her way off his leg and down to the ground. Then, he picked up his fork with his right hand and started to eat again.

"Me! Me!" Maggie said excitedly as she watched his fork move back and forth between his plate full of pasta and his mouth.

"She likes pasta, Draco." Jasmine grinned as she looked up again from her cutting.

However, as Draco looked closer at what Jasmine was doing, he realized that she was already done cutting up the girl's food and was instead prolonging the amount of time Draco had to hold on to the kid!

"Are you suggesting I feed her some of my pasta while you pretend to continue to cut up her food?"

"Yes. Just give her a little taste."

Draco sighed, speared one of the noodles on his fork and then started to bring the fork to her mouth. She smiled up at him and opened her mouth like a little bird waiting for him to deliver the noodle, like a mother bird delivers the worm to its baby. Maggie happily ate the noodle and grinned up at Draco once again.

"I think she likes you." Jasmine smiled.

Draco found himself smiling, "She's not so bad. She looked like a little bird just then."

With that said Draco speared another noodle and laughed as Maggie opened her mouth like a little bird, once again, waiting for Draco to feed her the noodle off of his fork. Jasmine let this continue on for a while until she finally scooted Maggie's plate of food over to Draco's side of the table and watched with a smile as he continued to finish feeding Maggie her lunch.

When both Maggie and Draco's plates were clean, Jasmine watched with a huge smile as Draco wiped his mouth with his napkin and then turned to do the same to the little girl still perched, quite contentedly, on his lap.

"You are a natural, Draco."

"What?" He asked in confusion as Maggie looked up at him, seemingly fascinated by his face for the moment.

"With kids. Watching you just then I would never guess that you've never held a child."

Draco seemed to brighten at her praise, "Really?"

"Yes, really. You'll make a brilliant Father someday, Draco."

Jasmine knew how much her words had to mean to him, especially when she saw him look away from her and somewhere in the distance, trying to hide the emotion in his eyes. One thing she knew about him, which had been confessed during a night of drunkenness that had not led to sex, was that he was afraid of becoming like his Father, who hadn't been what one would consider an ideal father.

"Min!" Maggie yelled, breaking the silence that had descended on the table.

Draco looked down at the little girl as she started to squirm in his lap, reaching out towards Jasmine with her little chubby hands.

"What is she saying?" He asked as he picked her up to pass her back to Jasmine.

"My name…or my name the best she can say it." Jasmine smiled and settled Maggie back into her lap. "Thanks for lunch, Draco. It was good to see a smile on that face of yours."

"What are you two doing for the rest of the afternoon?" He asked curiously, an almost eager look coming across his face.

"Not much, why?"

"Let's take Maggie to the Mister Mannigan's Magical Toy Emporium."

"What about work?"

"Mrs. Poppin will realize I'm not coming back in a little while and take care of business for me. Now, let's go. Maggie will love it there!"

Jasmine could hardly believe her luck as she, with Maggie on her hip, followed Draco down the alley towards the Toy Emporium. What was even better was the huge smile on Draco's face, which she knew she was solely responsible for thanks to her comment about how good of a Dad he'd be. And she was sure he would be. Yes, he had been nervous with Maggie initially, but it hadn't taken him long to warm up to her.

As soon as the three of them were inside the shop, Draco immediately took Maggie from Jasmine's arms and carried her off towards a huge mound of stuffed animals, instructing her to pick out as many as she wanted. Jasmine wasn't sure how Theo would feel about Draco Malfoy spoiling his daughter, but at the moment she found she didn't care. Draco was enjoying himself, even though a little girl was hitting him in the head with a stuffed pink dragon.

Xxx

"Where did that family of dragons come from?" Theo asked in confusion as he left his daughter's room after tucking her into bed for the night with the help of Jasmine.

Jasmine smiled at the thought of the dragon family. After attacking Draco with the pink dragon, Maggie had decided she wanted all the different colored dragons, which Draco had only been too happy to buy for her. So, she had a pink, purple, blue, green, red, and yellow dragon that had all been situated around her bed to watch over her as she slept.

"The toy emporium. Draco really took a shine to your daughter."

"Draco Malfoy bought all those stuffed dragons for Maggie?" Theo asked skeptically.

Jasmine nodded, "They bonded quite nicely. He even let her attack him with the dragons right there in the store where anyone could see them being silly."

"He had no need to spoil her."

"Hush, it put a smile on his face, which he was in need of. But you better resign yourself to the fact that he'll keep spoiling her because the two of them bonded. So, when you hear her say 'Aco' she's talking about him."

"Great." Theo sighed.

Jasmine gave him a playful shove, "I thought you guys were housemates with all that Slytherin unity and what not?"

Theo rolled his eyes, "Slytherins have always known where to draw the line before."

"Blame me, I initiated the bonding."

Theo smiled, "Thanks for today, Jasmine."

"Did you get everything settled with the muggle police?"

"Yes, he's locked away in an institution and will most likely remain there for a long time."

"Good. Well, I better get some sleep since I actually start normal shifts tomorrow morning. My counterpart is retiring, which means I get the good shifts now. I'll come see her before bed tomorrow if that's alright?"

"I know she'd like that." But what he didn't say is that he also would like that…a lot.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize I don't own**

* * *

Draco had no idea why Jasmine had invited him to Harriet's retirement party at St. Mungo's, but he decided to go anyway. It was either that or eat lunch alone at his desk in the office. Upon entering the conference room where the party was taking place, he almost backed right out again when he noticed the cake sitting on the table. It was most definitely a creation of Meredith's: A red velvet that had already been cut into with enthusiasm by the party guests.

"Draco!" Jasmine called in greeting as she ran over to him with a plate full of cake, which she immediately thrust into his hands. He took it with a hesitant smile and, when he saw Meredith in the back of the room talking to Granger, he knew immediately why Jasmine had invited him to the party.

"You devious little-"

"Now now Draco, best not say words you might regret about your best friend. Besides, I learned all my deviousness from you."

He rolled his eyes in response and looked back to where Meredith and Granger were talking, but at that moment Meredith looked up and locked eyes with him. Even though he wanted to look away, he forced himself to keep eye contact and was proud of himself when she was the one that finally looked away, embarrassed.

"You need to talk to her Draco." Jasmine quietly urged as she gave him a small push in the small of his back. Granger was walking away from Meredith, leaving her wide open for conversation and, not about to look like a coward in front of Jasmine, he walked the rest of the way to Meredith without any more pushing on Jasmine's part.

"Hello Meredith."

"Hi Draco." She replied nervously.

"I want to explain-"

"No, I want to explain." She interrupted him with a hesitant look on her face. "I was completely irrational. I know that you have grown up past that line of thinking, but obviously I'm not as over it as I thought I was. For that reason I think it's best if maybe we just stayed friends."

Draco nodded his understanding. He had thought for weeks that whatever romance had been between them was over anyway. At least with her thinking he'd still be able to eat pumpkin pasties every morning, not to mention cake and cookies whenever he wanted.

"Alright then, I expect to see you at my shop tomorrow morning for your customary pumpkin pastie." Meredith smiled before she walked away.

Jasmine ran over to him then, "What happened?"

"We've decided it's best if we're just friends."

Her face fell, "Well, that's too bad. But at least you and I can still eat her baked goods."

Jasmine ran off again to grab some cake and left Draco alone in the back of the room, the full plate of cake still in hand. He was about to go grab a fork when Hermione Granger approached him. To say he was shocked was a bit of an understatement. He never expected Granger to like him no matter how much others told her he had changed, and he doubted that by her coming over to him that she even liked him. No, the look on her face was one that he was used to seeing as a Malfoy. She wanted something.

"What can I do for you Granger?" He asked with a smirk.

"Is it that obvious?" She asked with a sigh.

Draco nodded, "But only because I've seen that look my entire life. Seriously though, what do you need?"

Draco watched as she took a deep breath, obviously in the process of organizing her thoughts. "I've been working on a potion and a salve to counter the effects of long lasting, sometimes painful, dark magic. As you know, I suffered the _crucio_ during the war and have been testing the potion on myself. It has shown great progress: the stiffness and aching in my joints is greatly reduced. As for the salve, I initially started that one with only one purpose: to get rid of the Dark Mark and I need someone to test it on. I also was looking to market the potion and salve through Malfoy Potions Incorporated."

Draco stared at Hermione for a minute, digesting everything she had just said. If there was anyone capable of making such concoctions he knew it was Granger. He had hated her for it at Hogwarts where she had outranked him in Potions, which had always been his best subject.

"We wouldn't be able to market the salve: not enough people with the Dark Mark will want to get rid of it. However, I will happily agree to be your test subject with it. As for the potion, that's something the company would be very interested in. Are you seeking for it to be a onetime cure or something that must be taken for the rest of their lifetime?"

"It won't cure it in one dose: it comes back the next day." Hermione replied. "I feel that the dosage of ingredients in the potion would be deadly in order to achieve a onetime usage."

Draco nodded, "Perfect. That makes it marketable and profitable for the company. Tell you what: come to the office tomorrow whenever you can with your notes and I'll have a look at them."

"What about your Head Brewer?"

"Just because I mostly sit behind a desk most of the time doesn't mean I don't get involved." Draco replied. "Besides this is something that interests me personally so I want to be the one on it."

Hermione nodded, remembering that Draco was very competent at Potion making. However, she had initially thought he would be nothing but a silent partner, the one with the money to get the project off the ground, not the one to be in on it with her. But after all, she did want him as a test subject so she really couldn't fault him for wanting to be even deeper involved with the project.

"I can come on my lunch break at noon until one." She replied.

"And bring the salve Granger; I might as well test it while we're looking over the potion notes."

Xxx

Draco wasn't surprised when Granger arrived exactly on the twelfth stroke of noon with a knock on his office door. He quickly called for her to let herself in and watched from behind his desk as Granger came into his office, a bag slung over her shoulder, and shut the door behind her.

"Good afternoon, Granger."

"Malfoy."

"I trust that at the moment this is a secret?"

"Correct."

"Good, can't have the other potion makers hearing about this until it's already out for sale. Now, how do you want to go about this?"

Hermione sighed and placed her bag down on one of the chairs that sat before Draco's desk. She opened it up and pulled out a jar filled with what he assumed was the salve and a folder filled to the brim with notes about her potion.

"We'll put the salve on and I'll show you some of the important aspects of my notes, then I'll leave and you can spend the rest of the day and night looking them over more completely. If you would like to meet again tomorrow, simply send me an owl tonight requesting so."

Draco couldn't help but think about how formal this entire meeting was going, but it was only to be expected. It was a lot better than the hostility he thought he would receive from her. That she had come to him for help was a sign that she was willing to put some things behind them. However, he knew that while they would most likely make brilliant business partners in this venture, they would never be on too friendly of terms. The past was just too complicated for that.

"Well, Granger, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who actually wants to rid myself of the Dark Mark. My father is probably turning in his grave at just the idea." Draco stated casually as he shrugged out of his robes and rolled up the sleeve of his white shirt.

Hermione didn't say anything in response instead she opened the jar of salve and dipped her fingers inside. Then she began to rub the salve over Draco's Dark Mark. It wasn't until her fingers connected with Draco's skin that Hermione realized she should have had him apply his own salve. It was rather forward of her, but as a Healer she was used to doing such things. But because this was Draco Malfoy she was strangely affected by it. However, she didn't let that on to him. Instead she finished rubbing the salve in and then used a cleaning spell on her hand to get the rest off of her fingers.

As the two of them watched Draco's arm they both saw his Dark Mark turn to a lighter shade than it had been previously. Neither was disappointed though: the fact that the salve had managed to do something to the Dark Mark was a good sign that after enough treatments the Dark Mark might disappear from his arm completely.

"I'd say this is a nice beginning, Granger."

Xxx

Over the next few weeks Draco and Hermione continued to meet during lunch time, applying the salve and pouring over Hermione's notes on the potion. Her symptoms were still being well controlled by the potion, but the minor aches she experiences were nothing compared to what some people suffered from numerous rounds of dark magic torture.

The two of them had also managed to keep their meetings and developments a secret, which was fairly easy given that no one would believe that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy were working together anyway! Draco's secretary, Mrs. Poppin, knew but she wasn't the type to gossip. As for Draco's best friend, Jasmine, she was another story.

"Draco, I was just thinkin-Healer Granger?!"

Both Draco and Hermione started guiltily as they both looked up from the notes and into Jasmine's surprised face in the doorway. While Draco knew that Jasmine was capable of keeping a secret, he felt that there was no reason to mention his work with Granger until they had reached a more successful stage of their work. At this point his Dark Mark had faded a few shades, but other than that they had nothing more than more pages of notes to show for their partnership.

"Hello Jasmine." Hermione replied.

"Shut the door and come sit down." Draco ordered with a sigh.

Jasmine did as told and sat before the two of them at the desk, since Hermione had pulled the other chair next to Draco's. Jasmine quirked a brow at that, but didn't say anything as she eagerly awaited an explanation.

"Granger and I are working on a potion to help alleviate the pain of residual dark magic."

Hermione nodded, "We've also been testing it in salve form on Malfoy's Dark Mark."

At that Jasmine eagerly looked down at Draco's exposed arm. Even though she was his best friend, she had only seen his dark mark a handful of times. However, it was obvious even to her eyes that it was much lighter, more of a light gray in color than the striking black it had once been against his pale white skin.

"Brilliant." Jasmine breathed. "Before you know it, it'll be gone!"

"Maybe. It could reappear if I stopped treating it once it does go away." Draco hypothesized.

Hermione nodded her agreement, "Possibly, just as the potion must be taken continuously the salve must be too."

"So, I take it that this project is under wraps?" Jasmine asked.

"Yes, so keep your mouth shut." Draco replied with a smirk. "Don't even tell Nott. I know you guys have been pretty chummy lately."

It was true. After Jasmine had brought herself back into Maggie's life as a semi permanent fixture, her relationship with Theo had blossomed into what was becoming quite a good friendship. However, unlike her friendship with Draco there was definitely a tension beneath the surface that both of them seemed wary of identifying at the moment. There was Maggie to think of after all: she loved Jasmine and the feeling was quite mutual. In fact, she had come here to invite Draco along on their trip to the zoo with Maggie.

"Don't worry, my lips are sealed. Well, I was going to invite you to the zoo, Draco, but I can see that you're busy."

"The zoo?" He asked his brow wrinkled with confusion.

"Theo and I are taking Maggie this afternoon and she asked if 'Aco' was coming."

Hermione started to gather the notes into a neat pile, "Go ahead, I think we've done all we can today, anyway. I better get back to the hospital."

Jasmine shook her head, "Healer Warren is working overtime for the days he missed last week so, you're not needed this afternoon."

The room was quiet for a moment as Hermione continued to take care of the notes anyway, and then a devious, Slytherin like, grin formed on Jasmine's face. Unfortunately, by the time Draco noticed its presence it was too late.

"Why don't you come to the zoo with us, Hermione?" Jasmine asked with a friendly smile as Draco watched in horror, his mouth wide open. "Close your mouth, Draco, before you catch flies."

His snapped his mouth shut just as Hermione turned her head to look at him and gave what he hoped was a pleasant smile even though he was planning revenge on Jasmine in his head.

"I don't know…"

"We're going to the muggle zoo, so it should be fun to watch Draco's reactions." Jasmine smiled.

"Hey! Don't paint me as a muggle hater!" Draco said defensively, not wanting to taint the hesitant partnership he had with Granger.

Jasmine chuckled, "I never said that, however, there are some muggle things you just don't quite grasp and it is rather hilarious to watch your reactions and listen to your comments. Plus, it is so cute to see Draco with Maggie, Theo's daughter."

Hermione looked thoughtful as she looked back and forth between the two friends' faces as they stared at one another. Draco looked annoyed but Jasmine was smiling widely at him.

"I guess I can go. Give me a few minutes to apparate home and change."

"Draco will need to as well, so why don't you floo to his flat when you're ready?" Jasmine suggested. "Here's his floo address."

Ten minutes later saw Draco dressed, per Jasmine's instructions, in a pair of muggle jeans and a sweater. He was currently seated on his sofa waiting for the arrival of Hermione Granger into his flat. Meanwhile Jasmine was seated next to him, chuckling.

"I really have rubbed off on you." Draco muttered.

"We'll be at a muggle zoo. No one is going to see you hanging out with Granger besides Theo and me. Besides, this will be good for your partnership; give you an opportunity for some more trust to grow."

"We already have an agreeable working relationship."

"Quit pouting, you need to be on your best behavior for Maggie today."

"Why? So Granger and I can entertain her while you snog Nott senseless somewhere?"

Jasmine flushed to a nice shade of red before she could get a word out, "Theo and I don't have that kind of relationship!"

"Yet."

Her face continued to burn and she was thinking of a denial when the fireplace came to life and Hermione Granger stepped out of it and into Draco's living room. She looked around at his leather sofas and his huge book filled bookshelves before she let her eyes rest on where Draco and Jasmine sat.

"Ready? We'll apparate near the zoo and meet Theo and Maggie at the entrance." Jasmine smiled, sure that her face was probably still red but hoping that Hermione wouldn't notice. Thankfully Hermione smiled in reply and the three of them headed out of Draco's flat to apparate a block from the zoo.

After they had met up with Theo and Maggie, Hermione and Jasmine had proceeded to buy all of them tickets inside and, basically, dealt with all the muggle related business so the boys wouldn't act ridiculous and say something around the muggles. Once inside, Hermione began to feel odd as she walked in the group that consisted of two former Slytherins, one of which she was now partners in business with; also the same one who had made his hatred of her well known back at Hogwarts. However, the presence of Jasmine was a reminder to Hermione that Malfoy had changed and, from the looks of things and the fact that Theo had married and had a child with a muggleborn, Theo was also different.

Thankfully Maggie helped to ease Hermione's tension. Having only encountered her in the hospital when she was scared because of her crazy uncle, the little girl was completely different than the shy one from all those weeks ago. In fact, it surprised Hermione how much the little girl seemed to like Malfoy and how much he seemed to like her in return.

"Aco! Aco!" She cried just then, stretching her arms out towards where Draco walked next to where Theo walked with her in his arms. From having been exposed to muggle violence, Theo was very protective of his little girl and insisted that Maggie either be carried or held closely by hand for their entire trip to the zoo.

Theo sent Draco a glare as he handed his daughter over to him but instead of saying anything he moved to walk next to Jasmine, leaving Hermione walking beside Draco and the little girl as they came upon one of their first exhibits: monkeys.

"See those Maggie? Those are monkeys."

"Actually, they're orangutans." Hermione corrected as she read the little information sign in front of the fence that kept them inside their enclosure.

Draco rolled his eyes, "Always so correct, Granger. The girl can't tell the difference."

"Can you?" Hermione smirked.

Draco's silence was answer enough that he had not known the difference between monkeys and orangutans. However, the correct name for the animal they were viewing made no difference to Maggie who was watching them intently before she turned to look up into Draco's face with a smile.

"Well, we can either go toward the Asian exhibits or to the African from here." Jasmine said as she came to stand next to Hermione and Draco. "Theo wants to go to the Asian exhibit first."

"Well, I want to go to the African." Draco countered.

Jasmine knew what his game was immediately and rolled her eyes in exasperation, "Draco, is this really necessary?"

"Yes, it is." Draco whispered deviously so only Jasmine could hear and then in a much louder voice he said: "I have an idea! Why don't Granger and I take Maggie to see the African exhibit while you and Theo go to the Asian one? We'll come to you when we're finished."

Theo, sensing this as a brilliant opportunity to be alone with Jasmine after hours upon hours spent with Maggie constantly in their presence, immediately agreed to Draco's plan. Jasmine, of course, was hesitant, but there was really nothing she could do once Theo so easily agreed. So instead she followed Theo with a parting glare to Draco.

"Trying to pair them up are you?" Hermione asked in amusement after Theo and Jasmine were out of sight.

"It's only a matter of time. I thought I would just expedite matters so she'll quit bothering me once she's completely wrapped up in him." Draco said nonchalantly.

Hermione didn't believe that for one second. She had only been in his company for a little while and most of their conversations had only exposed his intelligence and not his personally. But the fact that the two of them were able to be in each others' presence for long periods of time was enough evidence for Hermione.

"You're helping her out because you know neither one of them will make a move without a push."

"I will neither confirm nor deny that accusation." Draco replied as he adjusted his hold on Maggie. "Come on, we'd better get on our way. I'm eager to take a look at the lions, myself, especially in the company of a former Gryffindor."

Xxx

Besides making the toddler extremely happy, the trip to the zoo had also very efficiently tired her out. After saying their goodbyes to Draco and Hermione at the apparation point, Theo, Maggie, and Jasmine had apparated back to Theo's flat. Maggie's head lay on Theo's shoulder, asleep, as he carried her into her bedroom with Jasmine following along behind.

Together the two of them changed the little girl into her pajamas and tucked her into bed. Then the two of them made their way out to the living room where they stood awkwardly before Theo finally spoke up.

"About today and what I said…" He began nervously as he remembered his flubbed words earlier at the zoo.

"_I want Maggie to have a Mother. I want Maggie to have you."_

"_You want me to just act as her Mother?"_

Unfortunately, the others had arrived then and he had been unable to clarify what he meant. He not only wanted her as Maggie's mother, but he wanted her as his wife and mother to his future children.

"Look Theo, I love Maggie but that's just asking way too much of me."

"No, you don't understand." Theo said desperately. "I want you to be my wife, that you would then be Maggie's mother is just a perk."

That shut her up. Jasmine stared into Theo's sincere face in shock. Yes, she had developed feelings for him quite some time ago, but she never imagined that his feelings for her ran that deep. She thought she had become nothing more than friend and a helpmate in his journey of single fatherhood.

"Your wife? You've never said anything before."

Theo sighed and ran an agitated hand through his hair, "I'm not exactly a whiz with words, Jasmine."

"I can't just marry you, Theo." She whispered in embarrassment.

Theo chuckled, "Well, of course not. I have to date and woo you first, but know that that is my goal. Unless, of course, you don't agree."

"Oh, I agree."

Theo smiled, "Really?"

Jasmine returned his smile, "My Mother will expect a long enough dating period before I announce I am engaged, otherwise she might be scandalized."

"Old fashioned country folk?"

"Yes."

Theo grinned, "You're not too old fashioned for me to kiss you right now are you?"

Jasmine shook her head shyly and took one step closer to Theo, craning her head back to meet his dark eyes. At first his size had scared her, but right now it comforted her and made her feel safe. Theo closed the distance between them and placed his hands on her slim waist as he lowered his lips down to meet her lips. Jasmine's hands immediately moved up and around his shoulders as his lips gently coaxed hers apart to explore inside.

The two of them lost track of time as they were caught up in each other's lips and touch, however, it seemed like hours had gone by when, finally, the need for air drove the two of them apart. Instead of pulling away immediately, Jasmine burrowed her face into his chest and hugged him tightly, afraid to let go for fear this had been nothing but a dream. Theo held on to her just as tightly and placed a kiss on the top of her head.

"How about having our first date tomorrow night? Do you think Draco would watch Maggie for us?"

Jasmine pulled away with a devious smile, "Oh he will, don't you worry about that."

Xxx

Sure enough, the next night Draco found himself at Theo's flat taking care of Maggie. It hadn't taken much convincing on Jasmine's part when she had explained what had happened. Draco was happy that he wasn't the only man in the city that cared for her, especially someone who could care for her in ways Draco never could.

After a fun filled night of playing with her dragon family, Draco had just tucked her into bed when Theo and Jasmine walked through the door with huge smiles on their faces and reddened lips. It was obvious they had spent a good ten minutes outside the door snogging, but Draco decided not to harass them about it…this time.

Over the next few weeks Draco found himself over at Theo's a lot watching Maggie while Theo and Jasmine went out on dates. He honestly did not mind because it was relaxing to play with her after lunch periods spent pouring over notes and a cauldron with Hermione Granger. They were close to finishing the stronger potion and, once it was done, Hermione would begin to take this dosage over the lower one. As it was Hermione had to take two dosages a day and with this new dosage they were hoping to reduce that to once a day. After that it was time to market because one dosage a day seemed to be sufficient enough to those who suffered daily from the affects of residual dark magic.

On this particular day Draco had invited Hermione to meet him at Meredith's bake shop before work instead of their customary lunch meetings. Today that would be impossible for Hermione for she had promised her afternoon off to Ginny.

After their agreement for friendship, Draco had lessened his trips to Meredith's bake shop, not only to spare his waist line, but to ease any awkwardness that might remain between the two of them. Today would be the first time back there in a week and he was eagerly awaiting his pumpkin pasties.

"Hello, Draco." Meredith greeted him with a smile as he walked into her brightly lit shop on a rather dreary morning. "I'm sure your withdrawal symptoms have brought you in?"

"Yes." Draco chuckled. "I'll take three this morning. I've gotten plenty of exercise lately so I won't feel guilty about it for even a moment."

Meredith smiled and went about getting his tea ready and dishing out fresh pumpkin pasties. Just as she was bringing him his plate and cup, Hermione Granger walked through the front door. Meredith smiled brightly at the sight of her. Hermione had also become a fan of the bake shop since sampling her cake at her birthday party months ago, and had made it a point to come into the shop whenever she had a chance.

"Good morning, Meredith." Hermione greeted pleasantly. "Can I get a cup of tea and some of your pecan sandies?"

Meredith nodded and made her back behind the counter as Hermione settled herself into the chair across from where Draco was already enjoying his tea and pumpkin pasties.

"Pecan sandies?" He asked curiously.

"They're delicious." Hermione assured him as Meredith returned with Hermione's items.

"You tasted one when I brought you all those samples, Draco. They're a shortbread cookie. The recipe was my Grandmother's. Here, I'll grab you one."

Once the pecan sandie was in his mouth, he couldn't help the moan of satisfaction that escaped him. Hermione chuckled as, she too, relished the taste of the pecan sandie in her mouth, but was able to keep her own moan of satisfaction inside.

"So, our next step is to create a fresh brew from start to finish." Hermione began once both she and Draco had cleared their plates.

He nodded his agreement. The potion they had been working on had been in the cauldron for weeks to study the effects each new ingredient had, but now in order for them to actually test the potion they needed to brew from start to finish in one day for the best result.

"Tomorrow is a Saturday, but I'd really like to brew as soon as possible." Draco sighed. "If you're agreeable, we could brew in my flat tomorrow. I have a potions room."

Hermione quirked a brow, "I must say I am eager to see this potion room of yours. I can come tomorrow afternoon."

"Great. I have all the ingredients we will need and I will see you then."

Xxx

"Going to Malfoy's flat, huh?" Ginny asked in amusement.

Hermione and Ginny were currently seated in a secluded booth of one of their favorite muggle restaurants in the city, James sitting next to Ginny on her bench in his muggle baby carrier.

"I hope you haven't told Harry about my partnership with Malfoy, Ginny."

"No, I haven't. But I don't like keeping things from my husband. If you don't tell him soon I will explode from keeping in your secret."

"Well, we're brewing it tomorrow so I will be ready to tell Harry, anyway. If I had told him before Malfoy and I had a chance to work together he would've made it difficult for us to make any progress and you know it. Now he can't argue the results: Draco's dark mark has faded significantly."

Ginny took a minute to tuck James in a little snugger as he happily snoozed in his carrier before she spoke again, "He'll have to see it to believe it."

Hermione scuffed, "That should be interesting. Draco and Harry together, Harry insisting on seeing his arm."

Ginny's eyes narrowed in on her friend and a smile graced her features, "You just called him Draco."

"Did I?" Hermione asked in surprise.

Ginny just nodded her head in response. Hermione shrugged. It was only natural after so many days of working with Draco and forming a working relationship that first names be used. Of course, they had yet to call each other anything but their last names.

"Is it true that he is a babysitter for Theodore Nott's daughter?"

Hermione nodded, "Yeah, Theo is dating Draco's best friend, Jasmine. But you should see him with this little girl: she is charming and with her he completely transforms. Gone is that sniveling boy we first met at Hogwarts."

"Interesting." Ginny smirked. "Not like his Father then?"

"You should know that, given what you've heard about him these last few years, Ginny. He'll make a good Father."

"I have to say that this conversation has been most interesting, Hermione."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at her red headed friend sitting across the table from her, "I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm sure that I don't like it or agree with it."

Ginny waved a dismissive hand, "Just make sure to tell me how the brewing goes tomorrow and please say something to Harry before I break down and tell him everything…and I mean everything, Hermione."

Xxx

When Hermione arrived at Draco's flat, via the floo network, he was nowhere to be seen. She stood there awkwardly before the fire place wondering if she dared to venture further without his permission and his presence.

"Malfoy?" She called hesitantly.

"I'm in the potions room, come on back!" His voice called back to her from down the hallway to her right.

Stepping away from the fireplace, Hermione made her way down the hall, taking her time to take in what she was seeing of his flat. The walls weren't painted any flashy color, just simple beige with a few picture frames hung up here and there. Upon examining a few of the pictures she noted that none of them were from his time from Hogwarts instead, they were pictures of he and Jasmine and in the last picture was a picture of Draco holding Maggie on his lap.

The door to his potions room was open and Hermione let herself in to find Draco preparing their ingredients, a cauldron and vials at the ready.

"Are you ready to begin, Granger?"

Hermione nodded, "Let's take a look at your dark mark first."

Draco had taken over applying his salve by himself in the mornings before work and together they had noted the progress over their lunch meetings. So, at Hermione's suggestion, Draco rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm so both he and Hermione could see the state of the mark. It was not completely gone yet, but now it was a very light shade of grey which he was sure would only take a week at the most to get rid of entirely. Of course, he was sure that he would always have to apply the salve so it wouldn't come back, but that minor inconvenience was nothing when he could actually have his arm exposed in public again.

"I should probably make you another jar of salve." Hermione commented as she rounded the table to stand next to Draco.

"I'm sure I can make it myself if you give me the ingredients."

Hermione shook her head with a small smile, "No, it's the least I can do for you since you have agreed to help me with this venture. Now let's brew, shall we?"

Over the next hour Hermione and Draco slaved over the cauldron in perfect harmony. Neither got in the other's way and they both seemed to anticipate each other's needs without a single word having to be spoken. By the time the potion turned the desired rich purple color, the two of them stopped and turned to look at each other for the first time since they had begun to brew: both with satisfied smiles on their faces.

"How about a drink to celebrate our success, Granger?" Draco grinned as both he and Hermione worked to transfer the potion into the several vials they had on hand. On Monday Draco would present the potion to his employees and then mass production and marketing would begin.

"Well, we can't really celebrate until people actually start to buy it or Healers begin to prescribe it." Hermione corrected him. "However, I could use a drink."

"Jasmine says I make the best strawberry daiquiris if you're interested. I don't drink them myself, but she assures me they are delicious."

Hermione quirked a brow, "What do you drink?"

"Fire whiskey, of course. What self respecting wizard would drink a woman's drink when fire whiskey is to be had?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, "Just for that, I think I'll take a fire whiskey."

"You sure you can handle that, Granger?"

"Why don't you lead me to it and you'll see for yourself?"

Xxx

Tonight had been a pretty spectacular night for Jasmine. She and Theo had stayed in with Maggie. The night had been filled with children's games, homemade food, and bedtime stories, but it had been amazing. Of course, the real reason was because after Maggie was in bed the two had just hung out on the couch talking about any and everything.

He had also said that he loved her and she had immediately said the words back to him. She knew that should have scared her, but she wasn't scared at all. She did love Theo Nott and could very easily see herself spending the rest of her life with him and Maggie. Thankfully, he felt the same way and, if it weren't for her old fashioned Mother, she'd marry Theo tomorrow.

But because she was overflowing with happiness she needed to gush about it to someone, so when she got back to her flat she immediately grabbed some floo powder and made her way over to Draco's. Once she stepped out of the flames and into his living room, she was greeted with a sight she never thought she would see in a million years. Draco and Hermione were on the couch laughing and talking and having a genuinely good time together.

It was when she saw the empty bottle of fire whiskey on the end table that it all made sense. With a grin, she loudly cleared her throat attracting the attention of the two drunks.

"Jasmine!" Draco yelled happily. "Join the party! Have a drink!"

She chuckled, "You two drank it all."

"Hermione and I are celebrating our brewing success! Aren't we Hermione?!"

Jasmine raised her eyebrows at that and eagerly awaited Hermione's drunken answer.

"Oh yes! Draco has some of the best fire whiskey I have ever had in my life!"

Who knew Hermione was a yeller just like Draco was when he was drunk? That had made for an interesting drunken one night stand, when he yelled at her all throughout. Of course, he had been even more gone then than he was now. Thankfully, they had run out of fire whiskey before he had reached those levels.

"I think it's time the two of you go to bed."

"Together?!" Draco yelled. "Hermione and I go to bed together! Why, that is absurd!"

"Absurd!" Hermione agreed.

"We're business partners, nothing more!"

"And he hated me as children!" Hermione added for good measure.

At that moment Jasmine decided to keep her mouth shut and see how this would all play out. However, she only wished that she had a camera to completely capture this moment for all to see. Of course, if she really wanted to show this in the future all she would need is a pensieve, and she knew for a fact that Draco had one in his bedroom closet.

"Yeah, didn't you know I was raised to hate muggleborns?! However, Hermione was always breaking my expectations of muggleborns!"

"Like when I punched you in the face?"

Jasmine had to force herself to keep quiet on that one, but she managed and continued to watch this interesting back and forth between the drunken wizard and witch.

"Yes! And when you got better marks than me in everything! It was embarrassing, but at the same time I couldn't help but respect you! But the idea of us sharing a bed…why that's just hilarious!"

"So hilarious!" Hermione agreed and the two of them began to laugh hysterically.

A devious smile transformed Jasmine's face as she turned from just an interested spectator into someone with a plan.

"I think the idea of you two going to sleep in the same bed is a brilliant. Think about it: there's only one bed in Draco's flat and Hermione is too drunk to get herself safely home. I couldn't possibly get her home: I'm just a figment of your drunken imagination! Why should one of you be uncomfortable on the couch while the other sleeps it off in bed? Off you go, get to bed the two of you!"

There was a chance that this would never work and Draco would see right through her act no matter how drunk he was, but that's not what happened. Much to Jasmine's pleasure, she watched as the two of them agreed and stood up from the couch. Draco grabbed Hermione's hand and together the two of them staggered their way down the hall, using each other as supports as to not fall down. Once the two of them fell on top of the covers and passed out, Jasmine stepped back into the fireplace and made her way home, a huge smile on her face.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own!**

* * *

Hermione woke with the sun shining in her eyes. Throwing an arm over her eyes against the sun, she wondered how it was even possible for the sun to shine in on the bed in the first place. Her bedroom had one window and it faced the west, not the east. With that thought she quickly removed the arm from her eyes, groaned as the bright rays of the sun made her head ache, and took in her surroundings.

She had never seen this bedroom before in her life and was about to start panicking when she felt movement next to her. After quickly checking to make sure all of her clothes were in place, which they were, Hermione turned her gaze to the body lying next to her. Not much of the person was visible because of the covers, but what she could see what a mess of pale blonde hair on top the person's head.

Hermione gasped, "Malfoy!"

The body next to her, which, in fact, was Draco Malfoy, bolted upright at her horrified squeak and turned to her with bleary eyes.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" He asked tiredly. "Why are you in my bed, Granger?"

"You tell me!"

The two of them fell silent as each tried to remember what had happened last night after the bottle of fire whiskey had been opened.

"Does Jasmine pop up in your memories of last night? Or was she really just a part of my drunken imagination?" Draco asked.

Hermione shook her head, "She was there, but I don't remember why she was. Although, I feel like she was the one that told us to go to bed."

"Me too. That wanker did that on purpose!"

Draco flopped back down on the bed and groaned. Damn Jasmine and her meddling ways. As if things with Granger weren't weird enough, now they were waking up in the same bed together after a night of getting drunk together.

"Look, Granger, I feel responsible for this. So let me make it up to you by making you an omelet."

Hermione quirked a brow skeptically, "You know how to make an omelet?"

"Jasmine got me a cookbook for Christmas and I've been trying a few things." He replied simply as he got up out of bed and smoothed down his wrinkled shirt.

"Okay, I'll stay for an omelet, but not a word of this to anyone."

"Agreed."

Five minutes later saw Hermione sitting on one of Draco's kitchen stools watching as he whisked eggs in a stainless steel mixing bowl. Meanwhile, tomatoes, mushrooms, and onions were sautéing in a skillet on the stove top, filling the air with a delicious aroma.

Hermione shook her head in disbelief as Draco looked completely at home engaging in muggle acts Hermione wasn't even that good at. Just a few years ago he would have rather died than actually do something the muggle way.

"What's with the look, Granger?" He asked suddenly.

"What happened to you?" She asked. "Not that the new you is bad, it's wonderful actually, but I can't figure out your motivation to change."

Draco frowned and poured the eggs into the other skillet that had been warming on the stove before stirring the contents of the other skillet.

"Well, it all started after the three of you saved my hide in the room of requirement. You could have left me for dead, I'm pretty sure Weasley wanted to and maybe you did too, but Potter came back. Then, when I met back up with my parents we took off, both of them too afraid to finish what they helped to start and I couldn't help but feel guilty and ashamed of myself. We settled back into our home and started to clean up the traces Voldemort had left behind in our house and for a while I was able to forget about it until I went into the room where my aunt had tortured you."

Hermione hugged herself at the memory of her torture at the hands of his aunt, but said nothing; too afraid that anything she said would stop him from telling her everything he was about to.

"Then my father fell ill and my mother told me that she had saved Potter in the woods by lying to Voldemort, and that reminded me, once again, of everything that had happened. With Father ill and Voldemort dead everything just seemed so pointless. He was a halfblood using pureblood logic to help gain him power! It was just so ridiculous to me: I couldn't believe how my parents had been bamboozled and I had just followed them blindly. And look where that almost got me? If it wasn't for you three I'd be dead.

"My Father died then, six months after the final battle, and I felt free; especially when Mother took off for France. That's when I decided to start the company and try to put all the darkness behind. And since then I've been trying to convince people that I am different and for the most part I have been successful."

As he had been talking he had finished making the omelet and was now serving it up on two plates. He placed one half down in front of Hermione, circled the counter, and took a seat next to her on another stool.

"Ron would never believe it, you know." Hermione said softly.

Draco nodded, "I was sorry to hear about his death."

"It was hard. I had always expected we would end up together somehow and after the battle it seemed that that was falling into place. But I've had time to come to terms with it."

"Do you think Harry would believe it?"

Hermione smiled, "If I can, Harry can. Plus Harry always likes to see the good in people. He saved you, didn't he?"

Draco smiled and took a bite of his omelet, "You believe I have changed then, huh?"

Hermione just nodded her head and started to eat her own omelet. She had to admit: Draco was much better at making omelets than her, even though he was new to the game. "This is delicious, Draco."

Both of them were aware that she had used his first name, but neither commented on it. Both were content to just let it hang there in the air as a precedent for the relationship they had established with one another.

Xxx

Jasmine was startled awake by the feel of a hand smacking her ass. With a small scream she bolted to her knees and turned to see Draco glaring down at her. Uh oh, she'd been figured out.

"I should be really angry at you. However, at this point I'm mostly annoyed." Draco began.

Jasmine grinned, "Did something happen?"

"We had a heart to heart this morning and that's what has saved you from my anger. No more meddling, Jasmine; unless, you want me to meddle in your love life."

"You already have." Jasmine pointed out matter of factly.

Draco grinned, "Yes, I have and I did so yet again. You, Theo, and Maggie are expected at your parents' house for dinner tonight at six."

"What?!"

"It's about time Theo met the family."

"You prat!"

"It'll be fun. Too bad I'll have to miss it."

Jasmine sighed, "Fine, no more meddling after this for either of us. However, let me just say that I think you and Hermione would make an interesting and weirdly cute sort of couple."

"You are insane."

"Am not. All that past history tension has transformed itself into sexual tension. I'm surprised I didn't find you guys snogging when I got there."

Draco shook his head and headed to the fireplace. At the moment romance was not on his mind especially in relation to Hermione Granger. However, he was hopeful that their business relationship had evolved into a friendship. He already felt lighter after telling her all that stuff this morning.

Xxx

"We've got a problem."

Jasmine pushed her way past Theo and walked into his flat where Maggie was playing on the floor with her stuffed dragons. The smell of their breakfast of eggs and toast still lingered in the air as Theo joined Jasmine in the living room where she was pacing back and forth in front of Maggie.

"Draco called my parents and they are expecting the three of us for dinner at six tonight."

Theo shook his head with a pleased smile on his face, "This is good. Maggie and I meet your family and then we don't have much longer to wait before we can get engaged and then married."

Jasmine crossed her arms and looked at him angrily, "I'm beginning to think you just want me here to be your perfect housewife. Take care of Maggie, make you food-"

"Shut up, you know that isn't true. It's a perk, but not the only reason I want to marry you. We've been over this. I want you as the mother to my daughter and I want you to be the mother of the rest of my children. I'm ready to share my life with you. Are you ready to share your life with me?"

Jasmine looked embarrassed as she shook her head slowly, "Yes."

"Then, will you marry me and go to your parents' house tonight and introduce me as your fiancé?"

"Y-"

"Hold that thought!" Theo said excitedly and ran down the hall and into his bedroom. He came back out with a black box in his hand. He quickly opened it up and pulled the ring out. He took her left hand and slipped the ring on her finger as Jasmine breathed out: "Yes, I'll marry you."

It was only after Theo gathered her into his arms and snogged her senseless that Jasmine actually looked at the ring that was now nestled on her finger. The band looked to be white gold and the diamond was a large oval sparkling in the light from the living room.

"It's beautiful." She breathed as Theo watched her expectantly, Maggie now on his hip.

"It's not an heirloom like I gave my first wife, but-"

"It's wonderful, I love it. Besides I'm not a pureblood."

"My first wife was muggleborn, Jasmine." Theo laughed. "But I have this feeling that putting that Nott heirloom ring on her finger led to her death and I'm not about to take that chance again."

Jasmine said nothing, but she was sure that Maggie's mother's death had nothing to do with the ring she had been wearing on her finger. It was nothing but some bad luck. However, she didn't really fancy wearing a Nott heirloom ring on her finger for the rest of her life. They were probably gold and she much preferred the look of white gold and silver.

"How do you think your family will react?" Theo asked.

Jasmine shrugged, "It depends on their mood. Lucky for us, I have so many siblings that something will happen with one of them to take the attention off of us."

By the time the three of them arrived at her parents' house in the country at six the house was full of all of her siblings including her older siblings' families, and it was pure chaos. Jasmine snuck a look at Theo as her younger sister let them into the house, and thankfully Theo didn't look too intimidated by the goings on in the house. Her nieces and nephews were being chased around the living room by her youngest brother while the older siblings camped out on the furniture, content to let the little ones run wild for a while.

"Jazzy! It's my favorite little sister!" Her oldest brother, Jeremy, smiled as he got up from the couch to greet them. After his pronouncement all of Jasmine's sisters chorused: "Hey!" at her brother but he just ignored them and grabbed Jasmine in a big bear hug.

"And you must be Theo."

"This is Theo Nott and his daughter Maggie."

Jeremy smiled down at Maggie and held out his hand for Theo to shake. It was during that handshake that Jasmine's mother came into the room and her eyes immediately zeroed in on Jasmine's left hand.

"Is that an engagement ring!?"

The house fell silent as Mrs. Bishop hurried over and examined Jasmine's left hand. Meanwhile Jeremy's hand tightened a bit uncomfortably around Theo's as he stared hard into his eyes.

"You better take care of her." He warned softly.

"I plan on it."

With that Jeremy released his hand. Then all the women surrounded Jasmine: pulling her into hugs and congratulating her as Theo was left with the warning looks from all the men in her family. He was pretty sure that having Maggie in his arms spared him from a much worse treatment. But then Jasmine's father approached him, shook his hand with a smile, and welcomed him into the family. After that happened Theo and Maggie were both welcomed into the thick of things and the rest of the night flew by pleasantly surrounded by Jasmine's large family.

Xxx

Draco had a wide smile on his face after presenting his team of potion brewers with what he and Hermione had been working on. Not only were they confident that they could match such work, but they were also enthusiastic that the demand for the potion would be enough to financially support the venture.

After informing his secretary that he was done for the day, Draco headed down to Meredith's bake shop. He and Hermione had some more celebrating to do, but after the other night baked goods seemed to be the way to go instead of alcohol. Draco would have liked to challenge Meredith with a very complex cake shaped like a cauldron or some other sort of potion brewing thing, but since he wanted to take his good news to St. Mungos this afternoon, he would have to settle for something she already had on hand.

"Hey Draco." Meredith greeted with a smile when Draco walked into her bake shop.

Draco smiled in return, making his way to the counter as he took in the sight of an older couple sharing tea and cake in the corner. He also noticed that there was a man, covered in as much flour as Meredith was, working on putting fresh cookies into the display case.

"What can I get for you today, Draco?"

"Well, I need a cake. Any cake you have on hand is fine."

Meredith nodded and turned to the man loading the display case, "Graham, will you bring me the cake I just finished in the back? It's the 9 inch round."

Draco watched as Graham retreated into the back and then turned his attention back to Meredith curiously, "Who is Graham?"

Meredith blushed, "I went to school with him and we were good friends. We fell out of touch and a couple weeks ago he contacted me and said he was moving to London and wondered if I knew of any jobs. So, I offered him this one."

"Does he like to bake?"

Meredith nodded her head, "That's how we met, actually."

Graham returned from the back room with the round cake in hand. It was decorated in white frosting with swirly red designs on the side and the top blank. Meredith grabbed a frosting tube and looked up at Draco expectantly as Graham set the cake down before Meredith.

"What do you want it to say?"

"Congratulations."

Meredith nodded and quickly scrawled out the word in matching red icing. Draco could barely write in cursive legibly in quill and ink, let alone frosting, however, Meredith's was perfect.

"How much do I owe you?" Draco asked as Meredith loaded the cake into a box.

"It's on me."

Draco shook his head, "No, I know how much starting your own business costs and, now that you have an employee, I insist on paying."

With that said he slapped down twenty galleons, took the cake box, and marched out of the bake shop before Meredith could protest.

Xxx

It had been a rather slow day in the ward so far, but Jasmine wasn't about to complain about that. Not only did that mean that no one had been in any accidents, but it also gave her time to catch up on some charts. Of course, it was hard to concentrate when every few minutes her ring would catch her interest and she would find herself admiring it for a few minutes before she forced herself to look away and get back to work.

She had once again fallen under the spell of her new engagement ring when a shadow blocked her light and, thus, dimmed her view of her diamond ring.

"Is that an engagement ring?!"

Jasmine looked up in surprise to see Draco looming over her and staring down at the ring on her left hand. In his hand was a cake box, which she easily identified as being from Meredith's shop; if the pineapple stamp was any indication.

"Yes. Theo proposed before we went to dinner at my parents' house."

"Congratulations! I suppose the proper thing to do would be to give you this cake, but I got it with Hermione and myself in mind."

Jasmine's brow wrinkled, "What are you talking about?"

"I got a cake that says 'Congratulations' for our success with the potion we've been working on. My team was very enthusiastic about starting work on it."

"Brilliant."

Draco nodded, "Where is Granger?"

"I'll tell you where she is, but you have to give me a piece of the cake first."

"Not until you thank me."

"For what?"

"If I hadn't set up that dinner you wouldn't be wearing that ring on your finger right now."

Jasmine rolled her eyes, "Maybe not today, but it was going to happen sometime anyway."

Draco just cleared his throat pointedly.

"Fine, you prat. Thank you, now give me a piece of cake and I'll tell you where she is."

Knowing that was the best thank you he was going to get at the moment, Draco worked on giving her a generous portion of the cake. He was then rewarded with the directions to Hermione's office down the hall.

Hermione didn't seem that surprised to see him and actually smiled warmly at him when she opened the door to him, but that could have been because she spied the cake box in his hand.

"Is that one of Meredith's cakes?" Hermione asked with a smile.

Draco nodded his head as he opened the lid of the box so Hermione could see the cake, "But not just any cake. It's a celebratory cake for you."

Hermione looked down at the beautifully scripted 'Congratulations' and looked back up at Draco with a wide smile. "I take it things went well with your people this morning?"

"They are very optimistic about this venture, and I have to say I am too. In fact, let me show you something else I discovered this morning."

Hermione's brow wrinkled in confusion as Draco hurriedly set the cake, which was indeed missing a piece thanks to Jasmine, down on Hermione's desk, shed his robe, and shoved up his shirt sleeve. Once his arm was bared, he eagerly thrust his arm out to Hermione's gaze and beamed down at her.

"It's almost gone."

Hermione looked down at his pale arm and, instead of finding the startling darkness of his dark mark as she had a few weeks ago, she found nothing but the faintest of outlines left of what had formerly marked him as in the service of the dark lord.

Hermione returned his wide smile, "Why, it'll be completely gone after another treatment or two! Of course, you'll have to continue to apply it daily, but if it works like we've hypothesized the mark will never be visible again!"

Then, not completely knowing what overcame him, Draco pulled Hermione in his arms and squeezed her tight for a minute before he pulled away and said earnestly, "Thank you, Hermione. You're brilliant. And thanks to that mind of yours, not only will I be rid of the mark that served to remind me of my ugly past every day of my life, but others will be able to lead ordinary lives without the reminder of how Voldemort and his followers buggered up their lives."

Hermione was still a bit shocked by his hug, but at his words she was even more shocked and embarrassed. She nervously tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as Draco continued to smile down at her. Finally, gaining her senses once again, Hermione cleared her throat and gestured to the partly eaten cake.

"I see you've already had your share."

Draco shook his head, "Jasmine's fee for leading me to your office."

"Well, eat a piece. I can't finish this by myself."

The cake wasn't one of Meredith's famous red velvet, or green velvet for that matter, but instead was a rather delicious and moist chocolate one that both Draco and Hermione enjoyed immensely. Twenty minutes passed by in pleasant conversation, but both were embarrassed to see that together they had finished off the cake.

"Meredith's baking is addictive." Hermione sighed as she patted her belly contentedly.

"Tell me about it. For a while there I was spiraling down the drain of addiction to her baked goods. Then, Jasmine called me 'chubs', and that pushed me to exercise more and limit my intake of pumpkin pasties."

Hermione laughed, "Good thing too. Draco Malfoy chubby? I cannot comprehend a world where that becomes the truth. I hope whoever she marries has a good metabolism."

Draco chuckled and then remembered Graham from his venture to the bake shop only a little while ago. He was a rather trim bloke, which wasn't necessarily a good indication of metabolism. But, as Meredith had said, he was a good baker himself and if he hadn't already chubbed out, chances were he wouldn't. Although, why was he assuming that Graham was going to be the man Meredith married? He thought for a minute and then recalled the way Graham had looked at Meredith. It was only a matter of time.

"Well as much as I love talking about a chubby Draco, I have to do rounds." Hermione sighed.

"That's alright. The team may want to meet you soon to go over some things. I'll owl you with information. Also, I want you to be part of the advertisement."

"Me?" Hermione asked incredulously.

Draco chuckled, "You are the creator."

"Yeah, but I don't really do the public appearance thing. I had enough of that right after the war."

"I know, but consumers will relate to you and knowing that you are the creator and take the potion for yourself, will make it more sellable. If I were to go on there flashing my blank arm I wouldn't get that great of response. It has to be you. Look, I'll have my ad people come up with an idea around you and we'll bounce it off you, alright?"

"I guess."

"Alright, see you later."

Xxx

Despite her fascination with the ring on her finger and all that that meant for the rest of her life, Jasmine hadn't really thought of the long process it would take to get there. Mainly the fact that as the first daughter to get married, her mother would be eager to throw a big wedding. Jasmine had been getting ready to head across the hall to Theo's when the owl flew through her window and presented her with a letter.

She scanned through the letter quickly and once she was done groaned aloud. Her mother was insane. She had already picked a date for the wedding. It was to be in September in her childhood backyard and her mother had already determined that there would be about two hundred guests. Her mother then dictated that her only responsibility at this point was to assemble a wedding party with the help of Theo.

Even though it was very presumptuous of her mother to take everything in hand without consideration for her or Theo, she found that she didn't really care all that much. She would have been happy with eloping or a simple ceremony with only a few people in attendance. However, she was not about to deprive her mother the opportunity to plan her first wedding. She'd seen her disappointment when her brother's in laws completely took over everything.

But there was Theo to think of. She was pretty sure he wouldn't care as long as the end result was the same. So, taking the letter with her, Jasmine marched across the hall and let herself into Theo's flat where he was sitting on the couch watching Maggie play on the floor with her dragon family.

"Here, read this." Jasmine ordered as she dropped the letter in to his lap.

She waited patiently as his eyes scanned the contents, and when he was finished he looked at her in amusement.

"I say let's let her do it. She obviously knows what she's doing." Theo stated.

Jasmine let out a breath, "Thank Merlin. It would be too hard to try to convince her otherwise, anyway. However, I have no idea who to ask to be my attendants!"

Theo chuckled, "Me too. I haven't exactly kept in touch."

"Draco has to be in the wedding, he's my best friend. In fact, I wish he could be my man of honor or something, but I don't think my Mother would go for that."

Theo sighed, "I suppose I'm supposed to do the noble thing here and ask Draco to be my best man."

Jasmine smiled up at him, batting her eyelashes at the same time, "You did go to school with him and he is my best friend and I'm sure after a while he'll be yours too."

"Fine, but I can't think of anyone else to ask."

Jasmine nodded, "I can't even think of one girl."

"Well, you have to think of at least one so we can have one attendant each."

"I don't have any girlfriends, really."

Theo looked thoughtful for a minute, "What about that bakery girl?"

"I like her, but not enough to be in my wedding."

"What about people you work with?"

Jasmine let out a laugh as she thought of Harriet, who absolutely did not like her. "Well, Harriet is a definite no. Other than that I really only socialize with Hermione Granger at work."

"Enough for her to be in your wedding?"

That's when a devious smile curled Jasmine's lips. She had promised not to meddle in Draco's love life again, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. Besides, if her feeble attempts to get them together failed, it would at least provide entertainment for her and Theo at their wedding.

"I'm asking her. Draco might suspect I'm meddling again, so I'll have to establish more of a relationship with Hermione before either of us asks them to be our attendants."

Theo smirked, "Didn't you two promise not to meddle anymore?"

"Well, that hardly seems fair when he has no reason to meddle in my love life anymore and I have every reason to meddle in his! He'll thank me some day."

"Unless it ends in disaster."

"Which it won't." Jasmine said confidently as her eyes strayed to Maggie. "Well, at least we have one thing figured out. Maggie will definitely be our little flower girl."

"What about your nieces?"

"Okay…maybe we'll have a few flower girls. I don't want my sisters in law hating me."


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own.**

* * *

The thing about Maggie was that when she was around it was hard for people to say no. Jasmine was relying on this for her encounter with Hermione. Today was the start of her elaborate plans to get Hermione and Draco together at her wedding. And to start those plans off she needed to establish more of a relationship with Hermione. Currently what they had was a friendly work place relationship, but she needed more than that for Draco not to suspect her meddling ways. And it was a perk that Jasmine actually did like and enjoy Hermione's company.

So, carrying Maggie on her hip, Jasmine approached Hermione as she was getting off of her shift. Jasmine's shift had just ended and Theo had been on time delivering Maggie into her arms with an amused smile on his face at his future wife's antics.

"Hey Hermione." Jasmine called with a smile.

"Hi Jasmine, what can I do for you?" Hermione replied taking note of the smiling toddler on Jasmine's hip.

Maggie really was a cute toddler, and even though she was dark where Jasmine was fair, the two just seemed to belong together.

"Well, I could use a woman's perspective on some things. Maggie and I are about to go shopping for some new furniture. Theo has found a bigger flat for the three of us and insists that we get all new furniture. Now I've only ever had hand me downs, so I have no idea what to get even armed with Theo's money."

Hermione nodded in understanding, "I've actually just finished redecorating my flat and know a good place for you."

"Is there any way you could take us there right now?"

Hermione smiled, "Of course, I don't have any plans."

Jasmine smiled pleasantly, while inside she was doing a victory dance. Her ruse hadn't been a lie: Theo really did want her to pick out new furniture for their new place and it was true that she really had no idea what to get. Her first instinct had been to call one of her sisters or her mother, but remembering her plan, Hermione had seemed to be the obvious choice.

A little while later the three of them arrived at a furniture store that sold both muggle and magical pieces. Jasmine and Maggie looked around the brightly lit place in wonder, taking in all the shapes and colors. Hermione, however, confidently led the way into the store and towards the living room pieces.

"Let's start with the living room. Do you know how much space you have to work with?"

Jasmine nodded and pulled a piece of parchment from her bag which displayed the floor plan of the entire flat. Hermione took the parchment and looked it over with a critical eye.

"This is a nice flat." She commented. "And you have plenty of space to work with. However, what kind of color schemes do you have in mind?"

Jasmine shrugged and set Maggie down on the floor, firmly taking her hand before she replied: "All I know is that we want Maggie's room to be shades of purple, as that is her favorite color."

Hermione nodded, "Okay, then let's start with Maggie's room."

After more than two hours of picking out furniture for the entire flat, all three of the girls were tired and in Maggie's case a bit grumpy. But that was okay because through the process of picking out furniture, Jasmine was sure that she and Hermione had started on a new course of their relationship. So she and Maggie parted ways with Hermione with smiles on their faces and headed home to where Theo was waiting for them expectantly.

"How much of my money did you spend?" He asked as he walked over and dropped a kiss to the top of Maggie's head and then pecked Jasmine on the lips quickly.

Jasmine set Maggie down and watched as she ran to find one of her dragons to play with before she turned back to Theo with a guilty expression her face. She had been raised pretty frugally, so it was crazy to her how much money she had spent today on furniture. If her mother ever found out, she'd have a stroke.

"More than I was comfortable with." Jasmine said guiltily.

Theo chuckled and pulled her into his arms. Her head only reached the middle of his chest, which he loved, especially when she burrowed her head in there just as she was at the moment. He had always been a fan of taller girls, but oddly Jasmine was the perfect fit for him despite the fact she was a good head shorter than he.

"It's okay. I wanted you to buy the furniture. However, I trust that you picked things that will last."

"Of course! I had Hermione help me just as I planned and she was very helpful."

"Hermione Granger would never buy something impractical, so that's a relief." Theo chuckled.

"Hey! I wouldn't have bought impractical things. I just needed help with style and the like."

Theo dropped a kiss on the top of her hair and laughed, "I know. So how did your bonding go?"

"As I planned." Jasmine replied happily. "From here on out I'll chat her up at work and go on a few lunch dates and then we're golden."

"Well it is only March, so there's plenty of time until the wedding on September fifth."

"Theo, my Mom needs all this information by May at the latest."

"Then I guess you better have a productive March and April."

Xxx

This night had been inevitable, ever since she went to Draco with her potion and salve. However, that didn't mean she had ever been looking forward to it. In fact, she had been putting it off for as long as she could. But Hermione could not ignore the desperate owl she had just received from Ginny.

_Hermione,_

_I am about to crack! Harry has been asking questions about why Draco has been seen in the hospital and why you've been seen in public with him and I can't change the subject anymore. He is already suspicious of me and I know that he is only a moment away from asking me a question that I cannot lie about nor change the subject away from. Come tonight for dinner at 6:30 or I will tell him myself tonight._

_Yours,_

_Ginny_

There really wasn't much room for argument with Ginny's note. The truth about her dealings with Draco would be better coming from her mouth, because unlike Ginny, she knew every detail of the business relationship and also would remain calm under Harry's gaze to rationally explain everything.

When Hermione arrived at the Potter household at six twenty five, she was greeted at the door by Harry, who was carrying James up on his shoulder. Hermione smiled at her best friend and stroked the top of James' head with a light finger. He was out like a light.

"Ginny is in the kitchen, I'm about to put him down." Harry stated.

With a nod Hermione headed into the kitchen where Ginny was putting the final touches on dinner. At the sound of her approach Ginny looked up and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that it was Hermione.

"Thank Merlin."

"You don't really think this is going to go bad do you?" Hermione asked anxiously.

Personally, she thought that once she explained her reasoning Harry would accept and appreciate what she had done. Of course, he had to let her explain that first.

Ginny shrugged, "Probably not. I'm just a nervous wreck. I don't keep things from Harry, you know that."

Hermione chuckled at that because Ginny pretty much told Harry everything: including intimate details about her time of the month and her visits to the doctor.

"But just in case, I made Harry's favorite dishes tonight."

Sure enough, Harry's eyes lit up when he took in the spread before him once the three of them were seated at the dining room table. For the first five minutes or so nothing was said besides 'pass me the potatoes please' or 'this is delicious, Ginny'. But once Harry had put a large dent into what was on his plate, Hermione decided to broach the topic.

"So, do you remember my potion I mentioned to you a while back?" Hermione asked suddenly, causing Ginny to jerk her attention from her plate across the table to where her husband sat.

"Yeah." Harry replied.

"Well, I decided to go to Draco Malfoy with my ideas since he does own the most respected potion company. He liked my idea and the two of us worked on-"

"Draco Malfoy?" Harry asked incredulously.

Hermione nodded, "He is the head of the company, so I figured it was best to go to the source."

Harry seemed to be digesting what Hermione was saying and nodded to Hermione that she should continue. So far so good: he was an adult now, not some emotional teenager with the weight of the wizarding world on his shoulders.

"He liked my idea and was even willing to be a test subject for my salve. In fact, his dark mark is almost invisible. And, as you know, the potion has been helping me out daily since I found the right ingredient combination."

"He actually wanted to get rid of his dark mark?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Yes, he regrets his past, Harry. I'm sure you're thinking that he just acts like he accepts everything because that's how society is now, but that's not true. He accepts everything because he has changed and he hates being branded with dark magic. The salve won't completely take the mark away, he'll have to apply it daily, but it allows him a sense of freedom."

Harry scoffed, "He should be reminded of what he was so willing to do at one point."

"Yes, but that was at one point. He was young and misguided, you can relate, I know you can. I'm not about to debate how he's changed and why, that's his story to tell, but I trust him. In fact, we've become friends through this business partnership of ours. And I wanted you to know that the potion is going to go public soon: his team at the company loved it and is working on it as we speak."

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his always disheveled dark hair, "Congratulations Hermione, I knew you could do it. And I have to admit that if anyone could get you this success, it is Draco Malfoy. I may not like him, I probably never will, but I have to admit he does have good business sense."

With that said the three went back to quietly eating their dinner. Until Ginny started to relate her day of clothes shopping with James and how she'd bought him the cutest little stuffed dragon, which immediately turned Hermione's thoughts to Maggie. While shopping today with Jasmine and Maggie, the little girl had all the while clutched on to a purple dragon quite affectionately. Jasmine, having seen her looking at the stuffed dragon, told her Draco had bought her a whole colorful family of them.

"You know Jasmine, Draco's friend, the girl who works in the ward with me?" Hermione asked.

Ginny nodded and Harry said he had a vague idea from what Ginny had told him.

"Well, she and Theodore Nott are engaged to be married. I was with Jasmine and Nott's little girl today helping her pick out furniture."

"I didn't know you two were friends." Ginny said in surprise.

Hermione shrugged, "We've never really interacted outside work before, but she needed some help and she's not so bad to be around."

"Wait. Was she the one that you always complained about being late?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Hermione chuckled, "but she's gotten better, especially after she got a new shift."

"And Theo Nott: was it true what they said in the paper about his daughter and her deranged muggle uncle?"

Hermione nodded, "I was there when he brought her into the hospital. I took care of her, actually. She's a precious little girl and couldn't be more loved by Theo and Jasmine from what I can tell."

Ginny smiled, "That guy deserves some happiness after that bistro accident."

Hermione cringed at the memory of working on repairing Theo's destroyed face months ago. Thankfully, they had been able to leave him with a normal life. According to Jasmine, he didn't seem to mind the few scars he had and neither did those who looked upon him.

"Malfoy will be giving you your share of the profits I hope." Harry said suddenly.

"Of course, not that I was in it for the money anyway."

"Well, just remember: despite the fact that he has changed a Slytherin is always a Slytherin."

"And a Gryffindor is always a Gryffindor." Hermione replied wryly.

Xxx

After leaving the Potter residence, Hermione returned back to her flat eager to crawl under the covers and fall asleep with her cat, Crookshanks. He was getting on in age, but he seemed too stubborn to leave Hermione any time soon. He was waiting for her by the door when she entered and eagerly followed her into the kitchen where she pulled out his favorite wet food, chicken and liver feast, and plopped it into his bowl.

"Enjoy." She chuckled, before moving on to her bedroom to slip into her comfortable pajamas.

Once her pajamas were on she ventured out into the living room and found an owl patiently waiting for her on the window seal. Crookshanks was staring up at the owl, his tail slowly swishing back and forth as he contemplated his next move. But Hermione beat him to it as she opened the window and quickly accepted the letter. She was about to slip him a treat, but the owl flew away too quickly. He probably saw Crookshanks lick his lips.

_Hermione,_

_Both the potion team and the advertising team want to meet with you tomorrow. I know that you are a busy healer, so I've persuaded both teams to wait until four o clock when I know your shift is over, thanks to Jasmine. The ad team has already come up with a mock up, so anything they have won't take too long. However, I can't make any promises for how long the potion team will take; they seem to be very impressed with your potion and are eager to pick your brain about it._

_See you tomorrow,_

_Draco Malfoy_

Xxx

Hermione's shift at the hospital the next day passed by quickly. She had shared a pleasant lunch with Jasmine in the break room and, other than a slight emergency in the early afternoon, she mostly just spent her time doing rounds and working on charts. So, when four arrived she said goodbye to Jasmine and headed to Malfoy Potions Incorporated.

Draco's secretary, Mrs. Poppin, was in the middle of packing up for the day when Hermione arrived on the floor where Draco's office was housed. Mrs. Poppin looked up from her purse and smiled at Hermione, immediately recognizing her from the many lunch meetings she and Draco had had the past few weeks.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Granger."

"Hello Mrs. Poppin, is Draco in his office?"

She nodded, "Yes, he is. Just go ahead and go in, he's been waiting for you."

Even though she had been given permission to just go inside, Hermione didn't feel right about barging into Draco's office. So, she lifted a hand and lightly knocked on the solid oak of his office door. She only had to wait a second before a 'come in' answered her knock.

Draco was sitting behind his desk finishing putting his signature on documents for the company when Hermione entered and shut the door behind her. He looked up at the sound of the closing door and smiled up at Hermione.

"Let me sign this last document and then the two of us will go meet the advertising team. I know they're eager to get this done so they can go home."

"I feel bad that they've had to stay late." Hermione sighed.

Draco waved a dismissive hand before putting quill back to paper, "Don't worry about it. Most of the team doesn't have lives. Only Johnson has a family and lately he's been eager to put in extra time."

Hermione rolled her eyes at Draco. While he had changed for the most part, there was a certain amount of snarkiness that would never change about Draco. It would just be too strange if it did and it wasn't as if it was meant to be cruel anymore, just matter of fact.

Once Draco was done with his documents, he and Hermione made their way to the lift where Draco proceeded to hit a button that conducted them to the advertising floor. Like every other floor in the building, it was designed simply but with a sense of style. There were plenty of windows to let light in and the walls were painted a warm beige color accented by dark browns and light greens.

The team, which consisted of three members, was waiting for the two of them in a small conference room half way down the hall.

"Everyone, this is Hermione Granger and these three are Johnson, Pellet, and Masterson."

Hermione smiled kindly at the three wizards and took the seat Draco indicated next to where he sat himself down. Once they were seated the team of three immediately launched into their idea for the ad campaign for the potion.

"We want you to be the face of the potion, Ms. Granger. Research has shown that the public is very responsive to you and your two best friends, as would be expected. So, why not use this to our favor? Mr. Malfoy told us that you are a user of the potion yourself, is that right?"

Hermione nodded, "Yes, that is true. But I don't want to be the face of the advertisement."

"At least let them tell you how they want to use you, Granger."

"It would be just a simple picture of you drinking the potion. And the script to accompany the picture would say: 'Hermione Granger: Healer, war hero, and victim of the pains of residual dark magic. But with the blank potion, pain is no longer a concern for this busy witch.' Of course we're not calling the potion 'blank', Mr. Malfoy told us that it was up to you to come up with a name."

Hermione looked thoughtful. Even though she had poured a lot of time and effort into this potion, she had never really thought as far as what to name the potion. In the scheme of things it just didn't seem that important. Of course, most potions were named for their practical purposes, such as the calming draught, pepper up potion, and skele -grow. So, why not pick something along those lines?

"Why not just dark magic pain potion?"

"No offense, Granger, but that's extremely dull." Draco chuckled. "I thought a brilliant witch like you would have a fancy name for it."

Huffing, Hermione crossed her arms as she scraped her memory for the little Latin she knew. Unfortunately, her Spanish knowledge was clouding most of her Latin, but after a few minutes she was confident she had come up with something satisfactory enough for a potion.

"Dolor de opacus magia," Hermione said proudly, "Dolor meaning pain, opacus dark, and magia magic. Is that fancy enough for you, Malfoy?"

"We love it!" Johnson said excitedly. "Hermione Granger: Healer, war hero, and victim of the pains of residual dark magic. But with dolor de opacus magia potion, pain is no longer a concern for this busy witch."

Hermione shrugged, "It seems like a mouthful, but you three are the advertising experts, not me."

"Does this mean you'll do the ad?" Draco asked hopefully.

Hermione looked into Draco's hopeful gray eyes and sighed, "All I have to do is have you take a picture of me while I drink the potion?"

"Yes."

"And where will this ad be?"

"Mostly the newspapers and magazines." Johnson answered.

"Fine."

"Great, we'll hire a photographer and make up crew-"

"Make up crew?" Hermione asked incredulously cutting Draco off.

He gave her a look as if to say _well duh_, and said: "Of course. You want to look your best for your appearance in the ads don't you? If not, people will be focused on that over the potion and we can't have that."

Hermione shook her head, disgusted, even though she knew Draco was right. Most of the reason she fought so hard to stay out of the public eye after the war was because of her experience immediately following the final battle. After just a week most of the serious issues of the war had grown boring for most of the public and had, therefore, turned their attention to who was dating whom in the Golden Trio and what Hermione should do about her hair.

After quietly taking advice about a hair serum, which resulted in a lot tamer hair for Hermione, she had quietly removed herself from the public eye, along with Harry and Ron. Of course, after Ron's death only a year ago the press had immediately tried to hunt her down again, but she was too smart to let them get the best of her again. There was no way her tear stained face was going to end up in the _Daily Prophet_ for everyone to see. They had finally given up on her and, while every once in a while Hermione saw someone with a camera stalking after her, a simple _confundus _usually got rid of them.

"We'll set that up and I'll owl you with the date for the photo to be taken." Draco said. "Now, let's head down to the brewing floor to meet with that team."

Without a second glance at the team of three, Draco led Hermione from the conference room and once again back to the lift. The brewery was underground on the last floor of the building and was under extreme security to keep those who sought out MPI's secret ingredients, as well as unqualified people that may bring danger to the floor.

The team was waiting for them in a special room of the brewery, assembled around a large cauldron which Hermione immediately recognized as brewing a mass amount of her potion.

"Ms. Granger! It's an honor to see the creator of the potion once again. I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Adrian Pucey."

Hermione took in the appearance of the man dressed in robes stained by numerous potions and realized that she did, indeed, recognize him. Not that she had ever really had a significant interaction with him, but she remembered his face from around Hogwarts.

"Yes, you do look familiar." She replied.

"Both myself and my team are interested in picking your brain about how you came to the conclusion about this ingredients. I would have never thought about using…"

At this point Draco tuned out and stood back and watched as the team of four stared at Hermione in adoration as she explained her choices and her processes for the entire potion. They were even more fascinated when she talked about the salve that would not be made for mass production and when she said that he, himself, had been using the salve she insisted he come over and show everyone his arm.

With a sigh, he rolled up his shirtsleeve and showed his employees his now blank arm. After this morning's application he had watched in amazement as the faint lines of the dark mark receded to nothing until he was left with nothing but a stretch of pale forearm.

"Amazing!" Pucey exclaimed.

"Draco! You didn't tell me that it had completely disappeared!" Hermione yelled in happy surprise.

"It just happened this morning." Draco replied.

Hermione smiled, "Well, remember to keep up with applications and if it comes back despite that let me know." Then turning back to the team she explained, "Just like the potion, the salve has to be of continued use since it cannot completely eradicate the dark magic: only subdue it for a while."

Pucey nodded with a grin, "Otherwise, it wouldn't be profitable."

Hermione shook her head, "That's not the point. If I could've made it so it was a onetime thing, I would have. But in order to achieve such a thing, the measurement of ingredients would have had to be upped which would then serve to poison the taker."

That shut the potion team up, Draco thought with satisfaction. Pucey was a brilliant brewer, but he could be bloody annoying sometimes. And his team were like a bunch of little puppies: always willing to follow Pucey blindly.

After fifteen more minutes of questions the potion team was finally satisfied and Draco immediately pulled Hermione along to the lift in order to escape the brewery floor. Once in the lift his stomach rumbled, causing Hermione to look at him in amusement.

"Hungry?"

"Obviously. How about I treat you to dinner after that hour of torture I put you through?"

Hermione laughed, "It wasn't torture, Draco. And I would love that, but I have a stew waiting for me in my slow cooker and I've been craving it all day."

Draco's brow wrinkled in confusion. Although he felt like he had some vague idea of what a slow cooker was thanks to the cookbook Jasmine got him, he still wasn't entirely positive what Hermione was referring to.

Hermione saw his look of confusion and hurried to explain: "It's a muggle cooking device, obviously. You put your food in it in the morning and it cooks on low heat the entire day. If you'd like, you can come to my place and have some of my stew. You certainly sound hungry enough for it."

"Are you a good cook?" Draco asked skeptically.

"I learned all my cooking from my Mum, so while I tend to cook the muggle way, I've been told it's all very delicious."

"By whom?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him, "My parents, Harry, Ginny, and Ron never complained."

Draco chuckled, "If I remember correctly, Weasley ate just about anything. But alright, I'll try it. Though I have to warn you, Meredith did cook for me before and it might have spoiled me to muggle cooking."

Hermione nodded, "Fair enough."

After arriving at an apparation point, Hermione grabbed Draco's hand and apparated the two of them directly in front of her flat door. Then with a wave of her wand to open the wards for her and Draco, she opened the door and the two of them stepped inside.

Hermione immediately moved towards the kitchen, where a delicious scent was wafting from, and to Draco said: "Make yourself comfortable."

Draco looked around her living room curiously, noting how neat and orderly everything was. One whole wall was taken up by two large bookcases, both filled to the brim with books of all shapes and styles, and judging from the titles: both muggle and magical books. A cream couch and arm chair sat facing a black square object which Draco recognized as a muggle television. Her walls were a pleasant maroon color; not too Gryffindor-y to turn him off, but tasteful when paired with the accenting cream color.

Draco was about to take a seat on her comfy looking couch when a streak of orange stopped him in his tracks.

"What the bloody hell?" He muttered looking around for what he had only seen very briefly. Seeing nothing, Draco proceeded to sit down, only to be halted by a hiss.

Spinning around Draco stared down at the angry orange cat with a smushed in face; a cat he recognized from the halls of Hogwarts, specifically chasing a rat back in third year. He and the Slytherins used to make fun of Hermione Granger's ugly cat, but they had always been careful to keep their distance and with just cause!

"What's going on out there?" Hermione called from the kitchen.

"I just met your cat." Draco replied, still engaged in a staring contest with the orange fur ball.

Hermione laughed, "You must have tried to take Crookshank's seat on the couch: that's his spot."

"As I just learned." Draco said with a glare to the cat before he sat down in the armchair.

The cat continued to watch him with assessing eyes, completely freaking Draco out. It was like the cat could see into his soul with those slitty little eyes of his. Cursing, Draco stood up and walked into the kitchen where Hermione had filled two bowls of stew and had them placed on her little kitchen table nestled into the corner of the room next to the window.

"Perfect timing." She smiled as he walked into the room. "What would you like to drink? I've got pumpkin juice."

"I'll have some of that, thanks."

Once Hermione had poured two glasses of juice she joined him at the table and the two began to eat her stew. Draco moaned in pleasure at his first bite; the meat was tender and just plain delicious, as were the vegetables.

Hermione chuckled at his expression, "I take that as a moan of appreciation."

"It was. You can cook, Hermione."

Hermione smiled in pleasure, "You weren't so bad yourself when you made us those omelets; I still haven't mastered the art of cooking eggs in any way besides hard boiling."

"It was actually surprisingly easy. If someone like me, who barely even prepared food magically up until a few years ago, can do it, so can you."

"You'll have to teach me sometime. My Mum has tried in the past, but even her omelets don't taste as good as yours did."

Draco beamed at her praise, a wide smile completely transforming his face, which Hermione immediately noted.

"So this ad…it isn't going to be provocative is it?" Hermione asked cautiously.

Draco shook his head, "Of course not! Most of the people we're selling this to are older people. The honest angle is the best. If we were selling to young men, then yes. Don't worry about it: the photographer I work with is the best at what he does."

"Good, I'd rather have as much of the spotlight off me as I can."

"Understandable."

After Draco had eaten three bowls of Hermione's stew, he said goodnight to her and after one last glare aimed at Crookshanks walked out of her flat and apparated home.


End file.
